Dark Holy Elf
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Looks good so far!
With Arthur you may wish to mention the various ways of covering for his weaknesses. If he's just facing one enemy who 4HKOs or worse (which certainly happens with his Def/HP), it's safe to tank the critical, but if you need to expose him to more punishment, a bronze weapon can go a long way to patching up his bad crit avoid. His son also has an amazing remedy for his luck woes, although you may not get him.
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The game actually pulls this combo on you at one point. It is nasty.
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I don't really hold the "C B A now let's get married!" supports against the individual conversations because it's constrained to have those happen in the S supports. So... yeah, a lot of S supports are bad but they have to be with the current format, and this won't change until this "everyone can marry everyone" bullcrap is gone. Yes, you could have every C-B-A support feel naturally romantic but that option is, somehow, even worse.
As such:
Takumi x Hinoka and Takumi x Ryoma. He is such a little bitch in those. The Hinoka one is the worst, it literally never goes past Hinoka dressing him down for behaving like an idiot. I mean that's kinda cathartic but... no.
Actually, the only Takumi supports I've read that I liked were his ones with Sakura and Camilla (though agreed that the latter doesn't really feel like a budding relationship).
Saizo x Beruka C. I like the rest of this supoprt, but... yeah. I normally like the localisation well enough, but that was a misstep.
Saizo x Hinoka. It's been said.
Beruka x Xander. I agree with Respite&Nepenthe. I like both these characters, but this support felt a bit weird and out of character.
Oboro x Hinata. It's like the Alan x Lance support only with the word "cool" thrown around about a dozen times. A few of the other "let's compete over who can be more awesomely loyal to ____" supports rubbed me the wrong way, too, though at least those weren't filled with worship of a character I dislike.
Camilla x Jakob. Actually sure let's mention at least one of others of that type explicitly. Another "I like both characters" one so that's not a good sign for the support's quality. Like... c'mon, both these characters use Corrin as a motivator but this support flanderises both.
There are also a bunch of supports I got, mainly on Birthright, which went literally in one ear and out the other, and that's a bad sign. Like, I used Hana, I supported her with a bunch of people, and I'm currently struggling to actually recall those supports. Not a good sign. This is true in every FE, and indeed was a signfiicantly worse problem in the GBA games than in Fates... but I felt it was eorth mentioning. Honestly, I'd rather have more supports where I felt the ball was dropped and I can criticise the support constructively than supports of this type which are just bland and forgettable, so... good for the writers for trying. -
I'd stick a little further back than that on the left, since you can get surrounded by reinforcements there (this was the cause of one of my resets). The breakable wall makes a great chokepoint until the water retreats.
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Nice, I like these. Special shout-out to Subaki since he doesn't even have the benefit of being a character I care about at all at base, but I really liked his art. The royals are great as always, and Setsuna's is funny, because it confirms at this point beyond a doubt that the mismatched feet thing is a deliberate joke (well, I suspect Corrin wasn't, but they're running with it now... no pun intended). The only one I'm not a big fan of is Oboro's. I dunno, do the proportions look off to anyone else? Like her feet look significantly bigger than her torso somehow.
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Honestly some of the happiest I've been from lottery prizes have been bronze balls giving me a type of ore I don't have yet, which combined with the arena speeds the process of forging in the early- to midgame.
Otherwise the most valuable things I've gotten from the lottery have been silver and raider weapons. I don't remember what level of prize those are, I think silver.
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honestly don't know if her support with Corrin is worse than the ones with the Hoshidan sisters.
That letter, man.
Let's not imply that the Hoshidan brothers don't have the same scene.
Mine:
-Ganglari pulling Corrin off the bridge. It just seemed so... ridiculous. It could have worked, but it needed to be better animated to be clear what was happening; as is it just looked like Corrin jumped off.
-The Deeprealms explanations for the kids. I just laughed.
-Lilith's sacrifice out of nowhere. On both routes, no less! Here is this character I never cared about taking a hit for Corrin in a scene which shouldn't even have happened, and somehow it manages to happen in two separate scenes, one on each route. C'mon.
-And finally, yes, the fact that a game which is partially about exploring the bonds between siblings puts that in the back seat because the avatar must be able to fuck everyone (of the socially acceptable gender). With Elise I'm creeped out, with everyone else I just have to laugh.
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Sure, I'm all for some positivity. I've played the first two routes, for reference.
-Conquest may have the most meticulous, thoughtful map design in any Strategy RPG I have ever played. You can just feel the love put into the different maps, the enemy placements and their skill loadouts.
-I really like the new reclassing/skill system.-In particular, tactical skills like Lunge, Shove, Shelter, Swap return something to the series which had been sorely missing in the last three games.
-I love love LOVE that ninja reinforcements (er, that is, reinforcements ho attack as soon they appear, not reinforcements in the Ninja class..) are gone, even on the hardest difficulties. And that fog of war is also gone. The game may be tough, but it is always fair and respects you and gives you all the information you need. If I die, it's my fault, and I love that feeling.
-The new pairup and dual strike system is non-random and strategic, preserving everything about the system that was a good idea and actually making it good in practice.
-I wasn't sure what I would think about weapon durability being gone, but I really like it in practice. It's really hard to go back to games like FE7 with the stupid durability/shop system where you constantly had to worry about running out of weapons if you didn't check a guide to see what would be storebought in what chapter. Meanwhile, weapons are now individually balanced against each other and the choices are interesting ones.
-I thought the Norhian siblings had considerably more depth than I expect from Fire Emblem characters.
-I like how Conquest's plot features a protagonist who does some bad things and made me consider the morality of her actions, again not something I'm used to out of Fire Emblem. (Only the Tellius games have so much as flirted with it before, unsurprisingly I think they're the high point of the series for writing.)
-I've praised Conquest a lot so let me throw something in for Birthright: Chapter 26 is a powerful sequence.
-The music is just amazing. Special shout-out to the final battle theme; I normally hate Japanese pop vocals remixed into a final battle theme (e.g. the later Wild Arms games) but Fates' composers and Rena Strober really nailed it.
I could really go on. Conquest in particular is my favourite game in years. -
To each their own. Basara have some more bulk but Onmyoji are faster (equal bases, higher growth) and have higher magic. I'll take E-rank staves over E-rank lances.
A 5% growth difference isn't ever worth hyping, as it translates to still under a 1 point difference at Level 20, and you spend a lot of the time promoted below Level 20 (if you even get there).
I do agree that staves are nice and certainly better than E rank lances, but if this were just about raw stats, Basara would win easily (you could always take a temporary dip in Onmyoji at Level 14-15 for Tomefaire).
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Gameplaywise, not even close; the royals are some of the best PCs in the game and the Awakening trio are all pretty mediocre IMO.
Plotwise I dunno. I generally don't really care about canon plot powers a la Dragon Ball. I'll just note that on Birthright, the game really does narratively hype up Xander a lot.
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Where did it say that Leo and Camilla murdered their sibling? I remember a support where Leo and Elise's mothers tried to use them as leverage to get ahead in court, but it seems kind of out of character for Camilla and Leo to murder their siblings in cold blood.
It's not a sure thing but it's certainly possible, Camilla in particular.
-We have evidence that Garon had considerably more than three concubines. Leo references the fact there were quite a number using their children as pawns, and the implication is that there were certainly more kids than just the three of them.
-During her Niles support, Camilla talks angrilly of her role in the conflict between the concubines and calls herself "pathetic" for her role in it. She clams up on the subject a bit at this point but...
-Camilla was targetted by an assassin, and the timeline fits for it to be part of this conflict. Camilla herself hired that assassin, and we know that Beruka was sent to do at least one assassination thereafter (her former employer) so I think it's naive to assume she never made use of Beruka's services herself otherwise.
-Camilla speaks repeatedly of being merciless to one's enemies, and switches rapidly into that personality if her loved ones are threatened, or when someone brings it up (e.g. her support with Elise). This does not suggest someone who would be above murder if need be.
I think the evidence favours Camilla having at least one of either (a) her half-siblings, or (b) her step-mothers assassinated. It's only hinted at, but it fits her character and backstory too well for me to ignore. I'm less convinced about Leo. It's not impossible, but the evidence isn't as strong. He's also considerably younger and given when this conflict is implied to have happened, he may have been too young to really participate. Elise, notice, is too young to really even be aware of it at all.
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To sum up what I said in another thread:
On a physical unit, Rend Heaven is the clear winner:
-Most enemies have more Str than Def, which is what Rend Heaven requires to deal more damage than Luna.
-The few enemies with really low Str are typically very easy to kill.
-It has a higher activation rate.
On a magical unit, the reverse is likely true, because some enemies, including some hard-to-kill ones, have really bad Mag (even 0). Of course, Rend Heaven's higher activation rate does at least make it debatable.
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I can't stand the new direction though. Dual Destinies simply wasn't written well, with Athena hamfisted into the story and stealing all the spotlight from Apollo (poor guy can't catch a break), convoluted explanations and finales and for many reasons I consider the final case to be the single worst case in the series due to how much in fails in every aspect - horrible, horrible villain, reliance on Ace Attorney clichés, Apollo's subplot is thrown out the window, several huge plot holes (you mean to tell me the murderer was caught on tape and the police didn't even rewind the security footage for seven years, even with Edgeworth leading the investigation? Not even the Ace Attorney police is that stupid), and so on.
[...]
That's one of my many problems with Nergal as well. Aside from Ryouma talking about being jealous of Corrin's royal traits when he was bloody four years old, I believe my least favorite line in the entire series is when Athos states that Nergal could've killed them but didn't, since that encapsulates everything wrong with that game's story.
The amount Nergal's plot power fluctuates scene-to-scene is insane.
Re the rest:
I generally disagree on Dual Destinies; one of the things I really liked about the game is how the three protagonists did a good job of sharing the spotlight, each taking time in different shoes (and one of them was even a woman! This is not insignificant, gender issues are one of the main things which keeps me from gushing over Ace Attorney more than I already do). I certainly didn't feel Athena stole the spotlight at all, while she gets a fair bit of screentime due to being the new character with the freshly explored backstory, the game spends a lot of time on the other two as well, and in particular lets you play as them (especially Phoenix) more than as her.
I also really liked the villain of the last case, but to each their own. They're definitely a style villain and that isn't going to work for everyone (the game doesn't even try to give them motives beyond being a spy). I also really liked their previous identity, which helped! The game certainly isn't perfect, though; in particular I thought the third case's drama-bombs were rather silly and the triple confession (which is immediately recanted a few hours later, what the fuck?) might be the most idiotic scene in the series.
I'm curious as to what you thought of the Edgeworth game(s), as well? I was certainly including them in my comment, since my understanding is that all three games share at least one major writer. I was a big fan of AAI1 (I thought it was both a big return to form for the series AND a much-needed evolution of a formula that risked going stale), and thought that AAI2 was good too, for all that it had a plot which was rather too convoluted for its own good.
While not a great villain by himself, I think his philosophy on life (the strong eat the weak) was good for world building. Him allowing people of talent, regardless of birth, to take high military positions makes it seem like he could be a popular monarch, within his own country.
I've seen the "strength is everything" villain a few too many times to have much respect for it as interesting, I'll admit, so I wasn't disposed to like Ashnard at base.
But Ashnard is especially maddening because his actions in the late stage of the game are complete nonsense. He sits in Crimea and lets you conquer Daein and doesn't seem to care. Like... what? In what world does this make sense? Okay, okay, Ashnard is supposed to be insane, I guess that explains his reaction, if not in a way that is satisfying. But it does not explain why his army would put up with it. Everyone from his generals down to his common soldiers has friends and family back home in Daein; do you think they'd just sit idly by while their homeland gets sacked because "Ashnard considers whereever he currently is to be his kingdom" (actual in-game line)? The game doesn't even begin to address why Ashnard doesn't get a dozen knives in his back and Bryce isn't leading the troops home and/or hammering out peace with Begnion immediately after Chapter 21, or worse, asks us to believe that Ashnard is so "badass" that his troops wouldn't do this out of fear/respect for him.
It's extra frustrating because just a couple chapters earlier Path of Radiance was sensitively showing the terrible effects of Ike's invasion of Daein in Talrega, but all that gets swept aside for an incredibly stupid endgame arc.
Oh. Okay. LOL. I was mistaken. Kristoph was a villain with class, which is a villain I can appreciate. You are right, though; his motives were... Yeah. I squinted really hard at Apollo Justice while playing it due to a combination of several things. Overall, I enjoyed it but... I tend to be rather optimistic towards games these days.
Talking about this makes me want to ironman playthrough all the Ace Attorney games.
Kristoph had style and class at base but that's literally all he had. His motives make no sense, his non-relationship with his brother feels like a gaping plot hole, and his ranting on the stand in the final case is just pathetic and made me lose what little respect I had left for him by that point. He's a really bad villain, and I say this as someone who wanted to like him! I mean, the Mia figure as a villain? How cool! But no, he's honestly a character who feels more like a Fire Emblem villain than an Ace Attorney villain, and I mean that in the worst way possible.
It's absoltely embarassing that Takumi/whoever wanted to save his motivation for a second game. There's zero excuse for having him being the main villain of two cases and still holding those cards to your chest as sequel-bait. Yeah, I doubt we'll ever get that resolution now, but I don't think after Apollo Justice and its tepid reception that many people acutally want to see it; I certainly don't.
(It may sound like I hate Apollo Justice. I don't, for all that I think it's decisively the worst game in the series. I do agree with the praise for the first case generally, and I think the new core cast it introduced was very solid, and even a bad Ace Attorney game is still absolutely worth playing for me. But... it's the only game in the series I haven't replayed, and it's probably going to stay that way.)
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I'unno, they're 1-2 weapons that can both double and crit and have even more varities and niches that can be filled than Tomes, such as Beastslayer and Armorslayer Shuriken, not to mention the debuffs. I had bloody Suzukaze running around on Hinoka's map in Conquest one-shotting Pegasi with that Beastslayer Shuriken, and his strength is pretty bad.
I really think they need something to hamper them - maybe they should focus on reducing the damage and really emphazise the debuffs.
It's true that the Hunting Knife is pretty great, but weakness-hitting weapons are strong in general in this game. (too strong? dunno) And Kaze is perfectly suited to take advantage of it against pegasus knights, who have iffy durability but are hard to double (and he doubles them!). But on the other hand, the Sting Shuriken, while great, still doesn't typically allow ninjas to one-round generals (whereas a Hammer does unless they have Wary Fighter), and Kaze's offence against anything he doesn't hit weakness on is quite bad partly because knives have low attack (at least until he gets Shurikenfaire or something similar).
Tomes hit res so they have a pretty strong niche as it is, and they have a lot of cool effects of their own (horse spirit is freaking great, Lightning is one of the most accessable brave weapons, Nosferatu is completely unique), though admittedly little ability to hit weakness. I'm pretty open to the argument that knives are better than tomes but I don't think it's any sort of slam-dunk.
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Hidden weapons definitely have a bit a leg-up on other weapon types. They're usually weak enough that you won't one-round with them often, though, so that's Working As intended given that IntSys tried to make it hard to one-round at 1-2 range on the enemy phase in this game. I think a slight nerfing may be in order (certainly they shouldn't keep the +2 speed they have as shuriken) but it's not really that big a deal. I certainly didn't think there was anything as egregious in this game as, say, how bad swords were in Path of Radiance.
Didn't Sacred Stones have base weapon ranks for advanced classes too? Sacred Stones also had a thing where all weapon ranks could reach A, but you could only S rank one weapon type. Of course, in Sacred Stones being stuck with iron weapons was a lot less of a bother since that's all you'd use for most of the game anyway due to weapon weight being a thing. (Unless you're a Pegasus Knight, in which case you can't viably use anything other than a Slim Lance. Poor Pegasus Knights.)
Sacred Stones did, and even Blazing Sword did it in a few rare cases (such as Lucius's promoted staff rank).
Hey, pegasus knights in SS could promote to wyvern knight and suddenly not be weighed down by iron/killer and take only small penalties from anything else... which given their high speed was pretty OP.
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Maid's animations annoy me to no end, but Butler is amazing. But yeah, the absurd number of maids that show up in enemy forces is more than a little weird. They should at least be a rare class, you know? And why are there never enemy butlers?
Every enemy class is gender-locked when it comes to generics. The Troubadour and Sky Knight class trees are female, everything else (I think?) are male. It cuts down on enemy designs which the game has to create, but does feel lazy. It's also pretty silly when the only three Nohrian wyvern riders are women (Percy's not really a Nohrian considering where he was raised), but all the generic ones are men.
Re Arms Master, I like the idea! But make them a damn master of their weapons, don't just give them two E ranks (and cap two of their ranks at B!). There aren't many things I want to see the series take back from Shadow Dragon/New Mystery, but one of those would be having some classes have base WExp: Arms Master should be one such, if it comes back. As is it just isn't practical to make use of the full triangle when your base ranks are so bad.
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People like Ashnard? In the community I hang out with he's treated as a memetically bad villain. Which is about what he deserves. One of the best parts of Radiant Dawn is it turns him into a patsy.
Apollo Justice, the fourth installment in the main series of Ace Attorney, is infamous in the community for essentially being two halves as opposed to one whole, which was because the Capcom bigwigs wanted Shu Takumi, the game's director and the series' creator, to include the main character from the previous trilogy, which clashed with his original vision of the game. As such, the first and last cases are amazing since they most likely focus on the original plot of the game while the two middle ones could best be described as filler and builds up the other half of the story, and this decision has, in some ways, messed up the series essentially irreparably at this point. Still a good game, but if it had had a consistent quality like the first case, then it would've been my favorite game of all time - I urge everyone with an hour to spare to just watch a walkthrough of it or something, it's that good.Really? That's interesting to read about. Personally, I absolutely detested the last case, more than any other case in the series.
-It shoved the main cast off to the side in favour of Phoenix's revenge/redemption quest. I liked Apollo, Trucy, and Ema; let them shine!
-The villain was awful. First of all, he's already behind bars, so the game loses some drama. Second, the confrontation with him is weak, he babbles about the masses controlling the courts and you shut him down in one testimony. Considering some of the amazing villain confrontations this series has, this is extremely disappointing. Third, his motivation is either extremely boring, and/or has undisclosed secrets which were being saved for a sequel (those black psyche-locks) but of now we'll never know. Fourth, his relationship with his freaking brother is barely explored, you could be forgiven for forgetting that they are related.
-The flashback part of the case. Dear god. Phoenix acting super-arrogant! Gumshoe being all "I'm gonna get you, pal!" Are these even the same people?
-All the time-travelling evidence nonsense at the end.
-I could rant about how the Grammaryes, especially Zak, are horrible people, and the game doesn't really seem to get this at all, which definitely rubs me the wrong way. I assume you're a big enough fan of the series to be familiar with "Zak Grammarye is a jerk". It's funny to reflect on, but it wasn't funny at the time.
I agree with you overall, and I think Apollo Justice was a mess for the reasons you described. I also thought the first case was good! The middle cases being filler isn't a problem in and of itself, as the first three games all had fillerish cases in the middle... the difference is those cases were usually oustanding standalone, and developed the cast well, while the middle cases of AJ were messes (especially that concert one).
And... I've definitely read that executive meddling messed with that game, especially the part you mentioned about putting Phoenix in it (and this is part of what ruins the last case to me, so... I'm surprised you feel differently). I've also read theories that Shu Takumi was depressed and/or angry at the time the game was written, and it certainly reads like it. As much as I liked the original trilogy I'm really glad they went in a fresh direction with the more recent games. -
Ones I want to see return:
-Ninja: knives are super-cool, and especially with their placement on the weapon triangle, they may great mage-killers.
-Kinshi Knight: Flying archer is something I've wanted to happen since I first played FE. Why wouldn't flying units use bows?
-Malig Knight: Definitely a big step up over Griffin Knight (I liked Dark Flier too), I like the mixed magic/physical classes.
-Outlaw line: thieves using bows is cool.
There's also Spear Fighter, but that's not really a new class, it's just the Tellius Halberdier line renamed. Same with Onmyoji/Sage.
The classes I could do without were a few of the Hoshidan ones which felt fillery, such as Blacksmith, Master of Arms, and the Apothecary line (especially Merchant). Their flavour felt weird to me and they didn't really serve any interesting niche gameplaywise.
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I had a lot of trouble with that chapter, but not really with Fuga. I just parked my best unit in front of him (was Camilla for me, use whoever works for you) with a good pairup and smashed him down. Just make sure they have at least 27 speed so they don't get doubled after Seal Speed, and use an accurate weapon since he'll have WTA. You can go for attacks on your own turn, too, but do this only if you can safely heal the unit or they can actually tank 2 hits... the advantage of doing this is that on your own turn, at least, you'll get WTA. He can buy time if he gets lucky with Sol, but he shouldn't really kill you by himself. Watch out for the club's +5 crit rate if you use a lance, though.
You'll want to have all the other nearby enemies under control before doing that, though; if more do show up, stay out of his range unless/until you can kill them all.
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(spoilers for Birthright be in this post, just to be safe)
[CometChaserPleinair quote about only the males getting sacred weapons]
This is one of my biggest gripes as well. Why do all the male nobles get special weapons, and none of the female nobles do? It's stupid. It's also one large part of the reason why I heavily prefer Corrin to be a girl. At least that way one girl can get a special weapon instead of it being only the guys.
While this is slightly off-topic I have to second this, with fire.
I know that the families are set up strongly to be parallel, but still, nobody at IntSys stopped and thought about how bad the optics on this is? If you play as a male Corrin, the five princes get special Gary Stu weapons and the princesses get none? It's not a big deal gameplaywise (Camilla needs no special weapon to wreck everything, and Hinoka's good too), but flavour-wise... ugh. I'd probably have made it so just Ryoma/Xander had them, the younger brothers' weapons aren't really explained or justified in the plot anyway.
Between that and the fact that I find most of the sisters' relationships with Corrin to be more realistic and less pandering if they're of the same gender, I doubt I will play as a male Corrin until the inevitable replays where I start skipping the plot (as always happens with me and FE).The only thing I think it did well narratively was build up Xander. Even moreso than Garon, the game hypes up your eventual confrontation with him; the first chapter of the game has you sparring with him and it's clear he's holding back. Then once you've sided against him you get Camilla and Leo pretty much telling you "You may have beaten me, but Xander will utterly wreck your shit", the Rainbow Sage mentioning that Xander was one of the few who completed his trial, and the demo he gives at the opera house when he shows up as an obstacle to be avoided at all costs.
All of that builds up to a head; you've become stronger in your journey, and now you stand opposite of Xander once again; this time it's not him training you and letting you win, it's him fighting with all he has to KILL YOU while you try to overcome the last obstacle in your path before Garon. And suddenly... it cruelly subverts it and rips everything you AND Xander were fighting for apart by killing off Elise BECAUSE of your duel. Your duty to Hoshido and Xander's duty to Nohr cost the life of someone dear to you both who just wanted you to stop fighting. You still get your duel afterward, but it's just hollow and uncomfortable.
I think this is very well said. The way the game builds up the conflict and then subverts it is excellent, and definitely one of the things the game's plot does really right.
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I guess that's true. However, this system, clearly set up to encourage a Chrom/Sumia marriage, falls apart once a player reads the Chrom/Sumia support. This is due to the same philosophy of not caring about the quality of the supports, just that they exist. It's especially egregious since it is one of the most encouraged supports in the game, if not the most. This may be arguing against my own point, but even limiting the number of supports doesn't seem to guarantee quality. However, I don't believe consistent high quality can exist with this many supports.
Yeah, that's fair. And obviously a smaller number is no guarantee of quality; GBA romantic supports were often pretty awful (IMO at least) and there were never more than ~3 per character.
And yeah, for a canon support they were pushing, Chrom/Sumia sure was disappointing. Good gameplaywise though.
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IS has demonstrated that you have two choices, quality or quantity. When you go with kids, you choose quantity, because everyone has to have the option to marry everyone, no matter how ridiculous or unjustified the choice. I want the old quality supports back, not necessarily as limited as they were, but that seems to be a necessity for quality writing. I remember choosing the marriages I wanted in Awakening based on the quality of supports between the spouses, and how easy it was, because 99% of supports were garbage. That shouldn't happen.
I agree with your post, but the thing is... the bolded part doesn't have to be the case!
They already proved this, with Chrom and Sumia in Awakening. Each only had five (IIRC?) potential romantic partners. There's no reason this couldn't be extended to everyone, plus or minus a few for each character. This would naturally and inevitably lead to fewer supports being garbage, and to make up for it we could get more supports that don't fit this exact model.
The only disadvantage this has is it would become possible to lock yourself out of a kid (as you could lock yourself out of Cynthia if you married off Chrom, Robin, Henry, Gaius, and Frederick to non-Sumia people). But this isn't a problem at all, because players who plan out their pairings could still get everyone, and those of us who don't wouldn't notice the difference.
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I'll figure out how to use the freeze staff... once I can get past the initial wave of enemies on the left side. I can't even have Effie or Xander tank all that! They end up dying :/
Should I split up my forces or just go down one path, retrace my steps, and go down the other?
It's been a little bit since I did the fight, so apologies if I don't remember the details. This is what I did. Other strategies of course may work:
There should be a place you can move a tank (I used Xander) to that only can be reached by something like 2-3 of the enemies, but will still bait all of them out. I think it's the upper right corner of the room on the bottom left, but don't quote me on that; I just know such a space exists. Once he has baited these enemies (all of the first 5? swordmasters/ninjas will arrive even if not all of them attack), retreat! You can judge how far you can retreat so that, once again, not all enemies can get him at once. Then, with his two rounds of countering with Siegfried, I was able to sweep through the rest with the half of my team I was using for the left side while the other team was already headed up the right.
But as mentioned, if you wish, feel free to keep your teams together and double back if necessary.
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First of all, your summary is excellent and well-written. I agree with most of it, too. And good for you for not being afraid to both say when you think the game did something right, as well as when it did something wrong.
I agree with almost all of what you wrote, to boot. Some thoughts in response / to add:
I am okay with the fact that Elise's words failed to reach Xander. It's a tragedy, certainly, but I get it. Xander's loyalty does not let him betray Garon, even with his sister's sacrifice - perhaps especially due to it. He already didn't believe he could live with himself if he betrayed his father, and now he additionally believes that he can't live with himself knowing he killed Elise. The scene after the battle (not to mention how easy the battle was, if we give gameplay any credit) suggests that Xander didn't give it his all, that he wanted to die. He realised that Corrin was right, but couldn't live with himself to let him/her by.
I do agree with your point that it would be nice if there was some direct victim of Hoshidan aggression in the plot (Elise or otherwise) but I am actually quite satisfied with this scene as it is.
I also agree that it would have been far better for the game's writing if Garon were a better person. While I don't mind that Xander is loyal to a scumbag - people do things like this in real life, especially when it's a parent sometimes - it does lose something. The final battle of Birthright just bores me because Garon, and Corrin's connection to him, falls so flat. When Corrin fought Camilla, Leo, and Xander, there was a real emotional connection to those fights. Even with Iago, who had dogged your steps and deliberately caused you misery throughout the game, it was nice to see him get his comeuppance. Garon had done nothing but be generically evil, and beating him had neither emotional resonance nor gave me any satisfaction.
Although I'm kinda used to this by now, I think a majority of FEs have main villains who are utterly uninteresting and blandly evil and they bring their games down.
Fire Emblem Fates, Beginner's Guide to Conquest, by Mangs
in Fire Emblem Fates
Posted · Edited by Dark Holy Elf
Honestly I think bronze weapons need more hype in general. You can forge them (and if you have enough ore, you can make ones with similar power to iron/steel for equivalent cost), +10 dodge is a big deal, and sometimes you really want the extra hit when going against dodgy enemies. Maps like Chapter 19 are much easier if you have access to some bronze and I think a lot of people don't realise this, because bronze was such junk in some of the earlier games (especially RD).