The Obsidian

Huh, interesting. A quick google search tells me that none of the major newspapers reported on it, and this was certainly new to me! Be that as it may, you have to keep in mind that even though 19 percent answered favorably in a single poll, they do not represent an organized political force, and a restoration of a monarchy in Germany seems, mildly put, highly unlikely for the foreseeable future. Especially the Prussian monarchy is commonly associated with nationalism, militarism, and authorianism - so much that a good majority of German historians see it as one of major factor in our nation's Sonderweg, it's feeble democratic development until the middle of the 20th century that has contributed to the rise of Nazism. And, by the way, Wilhelm II's antics (Daily Telegraph Affair and all that jazz, you're probably familiar with it) were widely seen as an embarassment in Germany way before the first World War, and the Prussian monarchy in particular with its Dreiklassenwahlrecht (a system of limited suffrage based on income) was rather discredited, anyway. (And even if Germany had won the war - given the Reich's ridiculously imperialist war aims, he would most likely be seen as the representative of a criminal, inhumane system of national exploitation and oppression by the majority of people in today's world.) It's no wonder that during the war, Hindenburg rather than the Kaiser was played up as a symbol of national identification, and that after November 1918, even a constitutional monarchy after the British model was unacceptable to the populace. Now, this represents the majority view in Germany on this subject, regardless of my personal feelings, and it's unlikely to change anytime soon. Plus, after our experiences with two dictatorships in the 20th century, most Germans clearly prefer living in a parliamentary, republican democracy without such trappings of a personal rule, even in a decorative fashion. And that's all I can say about this subject. PS. No, I didn't see your comment as patronizing, don't worry about it. :)

More Magvelians! YES! Er, hello, and welcome.

May I see your sources, please? I'm German, and I can assure you that there is no serious public debate over this issue, nor has this subject ever been brought up in current political debates or important media outlets, as most people rightfully regard those few monarchists there are as nutcases who haven't had enough after the whole Wilhelm II. debacle.

Yes, please. Also, no more cameos of characters from earlier games, no time-travel and multi-dimensional shenanigans, nada. I want a fully developed world that can stand on it's own feet, with fleshed-out, original characters. I hope that's not much to ask.

Well, my issue isn't so much characters having fun in the middle of war - that was always are part of the series, and some of my favourite supports are a bit on the wacky side. What irks me about this particular thing is that it's just a blatant excuse for more objectification (because let's be honest, that's the only reason why it was excluded), and that it's just such a mood-killing situation that doesn't fit a medieval/high fantasy setting. But Fates seem to have a lot of worse problems with its approach to its characters, which were now graphically demonstrated to me by these snippets from the face rubbing thing. And really, given our current state of information, Awakening seems much better in comparison to this game right now.

Definitely not supporting this with my money.

Wait. They say what? .... Okay, I think I can now speak on what Fates is going to be. A demeaning pile of dung that treats its audience like malicious perverts, that is. I don't know who wants to fantasize over such a kind of relationship, but they should probably take a long, hard look at themselves.

First off all, no, I won't bite your head off, and I'm sorry if my post came off as rude or impolite - it might be due to the fact that English isn't my first language, and my ability to hit the right tone might be insufficient. After all, all these things we are discussing are by nature subjective and a matter of personal taste, so while we can disagree on certain points, I don't see why we should aggressive over something as insignificant as a video game. :) I agree that having a defining trait in itself doesn't turn a character into a mere caricature; it's a helpful tool that helps determine their function within the narrative and make them unique - and that is all fine and dandy. However, it depends on what these defining traits are, how they are fleshed out, how they relate to the wider context of the narrative, what tone they set, and whether they are actually helpful in making these characters more interesting. And that's, basically, where our disagreement seems to stem from. I did not like the personalities of the cast in FE13 (our grand example of a FE title with lots of fanservice as a focus) at all - in fact, I found them downright nauseating. The basic plot of Awakening was, as far I remember, a rather basic affair, convoluted by time travel shenanigans. In any case, the world of these characters was about to be destroyed by an existential threat named Grima - and some characters had even witnessed what a pleasant state the world would find itself in if this giant dragon-moth or whatever it was would enter the stage. Yet, none of the playable characters really conveyed a sense of urgency - given the fact that her whole company was slaughtered, Cordelia's survivor guilt is not really a major focus and that support deals a lot more with her (rather unrealistic) self-esteem issues, and Lucina gave us a little bit of angst, but none of that was really explored. (Despite her mission, she couldn't even muster the spine to execute you in order to save the freakin' world - because, after all, her personal feelings are much more important than the fate of millions. We fight for our friends - how much more narcissistic can a cast become?) Besides that, their defining traits were often reduced pure gimmicks - which found it's expression not only in the ending, where everyone just repeated that one trait that defined them while uniformly coming to the same conclusion, but even in their critical quotes, where they would say their little lines before ripping their opponents head off. Caring Sumia, bless her heart, would let out a nationalist war-cry, and shy dancer Olivia would be enraged about her opponent staring at her delectable features during battle. None of this conveyed any gravitas, any moral dilemma - it's self-absorbed teenage stuff that shows no concern for other beings. Earlier FE's tried to bring in some ambiguity and moral tension, but when you get such a fanservice-y title, these things aren't of any importance - it's the player and his waifus who matter. Furthermore, the character didn't fit the tone of their setting - they behaved like little brats on a field trip, having some fun kicking the baddies in their respective asses and having some saccharine teenage romance in between. Chrome came across as self-centered to the point where he would even leaving his realm in a time of crisis in order to search for you, the allmighty Avatar; one of the female characters (I can't remember who it was) was of course, all about your player character to the point of stalking and implicitly date-raping you; while most others were wholly consumed by their little crushes and insecurities that would better fit in a high school novel. They were a bunch of self-absorbed teenagers, not real people who are fighting a war. And maybe I'm repeating myself, but earlier casts in the Fire Emblem series weren't like that, for the most part - they had wider interests, they behaved like people with their backgrounds and contexts plausibly would behave; of course, most of them were attractive and could appeal to certain demographic, but they weren't pandering - Knoll might be irresistible for girls (and guys) who like it angsty and gothic, but his character would behave like a guilt-ridden scientist who is horrified by what he helped creating probably would. And that's where the problem with fanservice comes into play - it leads to characters that are intended to romantically appeal to an teenage audience, and players with all kind of fetishes; accordingly, they are fully build around these particular type of tropes. In FE:A, you had the rabbit girl for our fellow furries, the brooding, angsty swordsman who just needs to meet the right girl to get over his inner demons <3, the nerdy girl, the goth girl, the muscular jock without a shirt, the adorable klutz, even an improperly clad 6-year old girl for the paedos. Some characters are resurrected to give you a bit more variety - utterly helpless amnesiacs you can advantage off if you're so inclined, for example. And in their supports, all these characters behaved exactly like you would expect them to behave - they give you their fixes by showing the same titillating character traits over and over again, and they will not ever reject you, because they're here to give you a bang for your buck. And that's a problem - it reduces the types of characters we see, the interactions we get, the themes that are explored. Ambiguity, rejection, moral conflict, age, philosophical viewpoints, social standing are either left out or relegated to the sidelines - sanitized or mentioned in passing - when a game becomes a dating sim. In that way, this focus on fanservice, which is an outgrow of this mentality, does take away from the story and my enjoyment of it. I am fully prepared to admit that these are, of course, generalizations, and might not fit every single case. Gregor's support seems to be one of the better ones in the game - though, for me, is it a bit ruined by a cheap, non-sequitur marriage ending. Still, this is the general impression I got, and I do think it is a valid one. Now, of course, this is all about Awakening, and as everyone else, I can't fully comment on Fates. But it seems hell-bent on verifying my worst suspicions; for instances, we get tons of opportunities to ogle our virtual love interests in swim-suits and frolicking around some beaches. Doesn't this strike you as implausible? Doesn't this run counter to the established time and setting, and kill of any tension the supposedly dark story tries to build? True, even during war, people need to relax, but has it to be on such a high-school level? These are supposed to be adults, and young adults, raised in a hierarchical feudal society, after all - can you imagine Henry V. playing volleyball with his companions on the beaches of Normandy? What purpose does this serve besides us drooling over their figures? I'm not against attractive characters and silly moments (Fire Emblem always had them, and I'm not expecting a dead serious game with Shakespeare-level writing) but you can have that without killing the atmosphere. Apart from that, we get some lewd comments out of our husbandos by feeling them up a little, and good ol' Xander has no problem to fuck his adopted sister he has known since childhood, because getting off on incest is apparently a thing. Here, shipping and fanservice agains ruins some potentially good characters. (And for god's sake, have some class, people!) Plus, from the few spoilered supports I've read, the writing doesn't seem to get much better. Please keep in mind that these are subjective impressions, as all aesthetics are - there is no universal solution to what constitutes good writing, and my taste and reading may differ vastly from yours. I just tried to clarify my standpoint, and you are welcome to disagree.

Remember kids, if your adopted brother wants TO TEACH YOU LOVE, it's totally romantic and not creepy at all. ... The famous line "I can't even eat as much as I would like to vomit" definitely seems appropriate.

Thank you, that's exactly the point. When characters are primarily designed to appeal to the various fetishes and fantasies of the fanbase (otherwise,all this fanservice wouldn't be quite as possible), you're diminishing them. They aren't autonomous individuals anymore that react to the world surrounding them in a believable manner, but pretty, hollow caricatures that just happen to appear in a war game. That doesn't mean that every characters has to be all gloomy and brooding about the horrors of war all the time; we've had pretty crazy folks like in Fire Emblem games before. But the point is that they were depicted as plausible individuals with their own thoughts, dreams, fears and limitations, not merely as projections for the player's supposed desires. Look at how the gruff, boorish Dozla marvelled at Ewan's futuristic ideas. It was hilarious, and even touching, and totally in line with his character - but it doesn't get any panties wet, so we can't have that anymore. If you as a developer inplausibly depict your stern, earnest paladin in some swimming trunks to show of his abs, you're taking him less serious as a character. And if the writers themselves don't take their creation serious, than who will?

You definitely should - it's seriously underrated. Gameplay-wise, it's a bit on the easy side, but a good story and the best characterization in the series should make up for it!

Well, that's a bummer. It seems that the CPU gets to play all the really cool characters (at least design-wise) this time around. :/ Thanks for the quick reply, though!

Sorry if this already has been asked, but are Kotarou, Vashara, Draj, and Daichi playable? (Please say yes!)

I, for one, remember a time when IS used the support system to help us learn more about the characters and their stories, the world they inhabit and how they view it, the values they hold dear and the moral dilemmas they face. Of course, there was always an element of romance in some of these supports, and there is nothing wrong with that, since even during wartime, it's natural that people will fall in love with each other. Yet, these situations were handled somewhat differently, and definitely not as superficially as we saw it in Awakening - take the Seth/Eirika supports for example; interwoven with their growing attraction towards each other was a subtle discussion of the conflict between chivalry and personal love, so it had a purpose besides "shipping"; also, since there wasn't something as inane as the S-Support system in its current incarnation, the player had to wait until the end of the game to find out how this side-story would end. It was a surprise, and a pleasant one, at that; now, we get some instant gratification - forget about ambiguity, forget about personality and anything resembling a mature view of human relationships: I like your cleavage, so let's get married and start fucking rubbing each others faces! We're supposed to play this game with our dicks and clits, not with our brains. Plus, all this focus on fan-service and sexuality really limits the types of interaction we see between the characters; there were barely any non-romantic supports or supports between characters of the same gender in FE:A. This is a big difference from earlier titles in the series; while Duessel had A-Supports with Knoll and Cormag, which revolved mainly about moral responsibility in war and their disillusionment in their former ideals (and which are in themselves better written than anything we got in FE13), he also had one with Amelia - it wasn't romantic, however; here, the old warrior (Great Knight, actually, but that's besides the point) was able to show a rather unexpected fatherly, caring side towards a girl that was basically a child soldier. I really liked these kind of supports - after all, there's more to life than getting into each others pants, and it fleshed out these characters in a way that wouldn't be possible if the only relevant factor is finding a waifu, virtually satisfying your sexual desires and breeding braindead children. (By the way, I shudder to think what would have happened between them if Duessel and Amelia had made their debut in the era of Waifu Emblem.) Also, and this might be just a subjective impression, but I do think that this new-found commitment to shipping our potential love interests has further narrowed down the diversity of playable characters. Again, this was especially apparent in Awakening, where our party basically consisted of a bunch of pretty, clueless teenagers having some fun killing the baddies. True, the teenage crowd was always a big part of the roster in any Fire Emblem game, but we also had characters like Duessel (yes, I know... I just love that old guy), Marcus, Dozla, Garcia, Vaida, Dorothy and Gonzalez - characters that maybe don't make any panties drop and aren't particularly cute or shippable, but nonetheless can be valid additions. To be fair, Fates seems to make a step in the right direction with characters like Gunter and Benoit ... but then again, the majority of the playable characters seem to really fit the sugary cutesy type that FE13 really hammered in, and I won't even mention all the masturbation fodder the game provides. So, long story short - does the amount fan-service bother me? It definitely does, and not so much because things like "skinshipping", drooling over video game characters in bathing suits or panty windows are inherently ridiculous (and they are), but more because it just exemplifies how much the series shifted in tone towards superficial fantasy-fullfilment and away from mature, varied supports, a diverse set of characters and a discussion of war that didn't boil down to kicking butt and looking sexy while doing so. It may be just a symptom, but to me, it shows how much we've lost along the way.