Medeus

I fifth that opinion, I really feel that the jump from platonic to marriage was pretty bad with the S supports this time around. That's one of the reasons why Saizou/Kagerou is one of my favorite pairings in the game, they ease into the relationship, they don't just give each other rings and promise to get married on the spot.

While I do agree that it gets thrown around way too much, I don't agree that it has no meaning whatsoever anymore. It's like what happened with the term sexism, yes it's overused by certain types, but that doesn't mean that certain female characters in media aren't portrayed in the best of lights or that certain practices in real life don't discriminate against women. The problem isn't the term, it's just the way that it's used. Mary Sue as a term can be used properly, it's just a matter of applying it to the correct situation by actually looking at the characters and how they're used in the story. For instance, you say that every lord is a "Mary Sue," yet characters like Lief are portrayed making terrible mistakes that end up costing them (ex. Chapter 19) or are portrayed with traits that they have to improve on (ex. his naivety). That would be an improper use of the term as it doesn't fit the character and how the story treats him, it's just throwing the label out. Kamui on the other hand could be a Mary Sue based on what's been said about the character due to certain traits falling into the traps of a Mary Sue (ex. certain characters being too absorbed in them such as Camilla). They may not fit as we look farther into them and find more about them, but then that's the point of this topic, to look into those traits and see if they truly do.

I'm going to take the skeptical route and say I'll believe it when I see it, Amazon pre-order listings do change and this could be an example where they're not updating the page until they know what the deal is with the game. Plus, we don't know how the single cartridge game would be handled in this case as it could be on-disc DLC as suggested.

I have to disagree about the whole racism thing making Hoshido "not so perfect." It is a negative trait, but when you think about it, does it really have that major of an effect on how the story (and by extension, the reader) perceives Hoshido? Aqua does get chased out, but it's not really given too much weight other then getting her on your side and it doesn't negate how Aqua feels towards Hoshido, there are no major villainous characters that exhibit that trait for us to place a face on, and it's barely touched upon if you don't read supports (and even then, I don't recall it showing up that much there either). The racism aspect is something that really doesn't get a lot of attention as it's not developed properly, so it's not as much of a blight on them for the reader as it should be. It's as William says, if Mikoto, Sumeragi or some of the other major characters exhibited a horrible racist attitude towards Nohr, that would've done more to dirty them. The Jugdral series does that to an extent as the story describes that Thracia's suffering is a result of Quan's and the duchies imposed tariffs, and we see how much Thracia suffers because of it in the second game. We don't really get that with Fates, as it is portrayed in the story, it's just another element of the story that gets mostly glossed over and never fleshed out.

I like how passive she is about the world around her, she doesn't let anything really faze her even if she's falling into traps. Plus, her dialogue in the DLC and some of her supports are pretty nice to read. As for her performance, I still plan on using her alongside Takumi, at worst I'd make them different classes so that they can fill different roles from each other.

Yes... Soon the shapeshifters shall take over all of Fire Emblem, it'll be a sweet revenge for all of those who suffered under humanity's boot! Looking at that list, I'm surprised that Silas seems to be the most popular of the shared males at this point. I usually hear a lot of fans say he's pretty plain compared to some of the other characters and go for those like Joker instead.

Favorite Character(s) Shared? Mozume, Lilith and Kaze Favorite Nohrians? Flannel, Lazwald, Charlotte, Flora, Leo, Luna, and Belka Favorite Hoshidans? Takumi, Sakura, Nishiki, Oboro, and Setsuna Favorite Kids? Velour, Lutz and Shinomone Favorite All-Round? Takumi and Leo

I kind of have to disagree about the Inigo not being suave thing, the point of the character is that he's trying to flirt so that he can get girls, so of course his mannerisms would try to reflect that. Granted, it falls flat (like it does in the supports), but that doesn't mean the character wouldn't try and put his all into acting that way when it's a part of his façade. As for the rest of the critical quotes, while I wouldn't say it was perfect, I did like that the localization did change up the quotes with the children. The thing is, they still are their own characters and thus would have their own traits and sayings. They wouldn't just say what their parents used to say, they'd say what their own feelings would be. So as said before, them just copying their parents makes them too similar to the parents rather then being their own separate people, and I prefer it the way the localization did it then it was in the Japanese version. The same holds true with Fates and I hope that the localization does give them more individual quotes as well, I'd much rather Kinu have more of her own lines then sharing them with Nishiki as she's not her father and I'd prefer she'd reflect that more in her quotes.

From what I've seen, the aforementioned Flannel, Nishiki and Velour are also very popular. Mozume also has a dedicated fanbase due to her personality and potential as a unit.

Those sketches are really nice, Jakob's probably my favorite of the bunch, but I do like how he drew Hinoka's, Flannel's, and Oboro's.

I kind of wish her speed was a bit better, but it's still something to help her stand out from Camilla. Thanks, I figured RES would be his Achilles Heel, but it's good to know his high HP helps. As for SKL, I thought for sure that the Beaststone bonuses (+5 for regular, +8 for +) would help fix that, but since it sounds like he still could have hit rate issues I'll definitely throw him into the Brave Hero tree for a time if it gets to that point. Plus, it gives me a reason to pick up Sol, and that's always a good thing for a bulky unit like him.

Thanks, that would explain why I haven't seen them much (especially Belka, it's Eda all over again). At least Benoit has a saving grace though, so that's something I could work with if I want to use him.

For those playing Nohr, how's Flannel, Benoit, and Belka? I've seen some Normal playthroughs of Flannel where he does do well, but I haven't seen the other two in action and I'm curious how all three fare in the higher difficulties.

To be fair, Chagall was an idiot, it was pretty apparent from the get go that he was power hungry and Manfloy could play into that. I do see your point with the King of Verdane though. Anyway, I also see your point about how the Lord's country is usually played up positively, but there's a problem with that idea, Corrin can choose either side in this scenario and thus both would be his country. The way things are played up, it's not a case of "here's the hero, here's the villain," we're supposed to be able to choose either side and thus both should've had good points and bad points, not one or the other. Both of them should've been Sigurd's Army in this sense, yet Hoshido is made to look good at the expense of Nohr and that does reflect more poorly on Fates then it does other games since they rarely (if ever) try to positively characterize the other side.

Yep, you can have a male and female Dark Falcon.

Hoshido and the Third route have almost been completely spoiled to me, I only missed a few chapters here and there for both. Nohr I don't know too much about the later chapters, though I do know most of the story since I looked into it out of curiosity after people were saying it was pretty bad.

Nohr Hard Classic Resetting No grinding I was thinking about going Normal for Nohr since I heard it's still pretty decent in terms of challenge, but I want something a bit harder.

Unless I'm mistaken, their ages are never stated outright in the game, so I'd guess that what they'll do is have them act mature enough so that it doesn't sound the alarm like what happened with Ricken.

Oh wow, poor Inigo! XD Interestingly enough, that made me think of his sibling support with Lucina back in Awakening, I wonder if that was an intentional reference.

Rest in Peace Mr. Iwata, you will be greatly missed.

It really seems like they had some trouble working all of the units into the third route. Some have weird recruitment times like Odin, some are bunched together like Chapter 14 with its five units and two of the same class, and some don't have too many changes (or none at all) to their bases when carried over from the other route such as Camilla, Flannel or Nishiki despite coming in earlier or later then in their respective routes. It makes for a weird character balance as you're thrown a lot of units with some falling out of your hands because they weren't given enough to help you hold onto them. Nohr probably suffers though it the most due to the story progression. The game has you go through Hoshido first before you get to Nohr, so most of those units end up on your team before mid-game and thus don't suffer that much. You hit Nohr after Chapter 12, so the Nohr units don't get on your team until mid-to-late game with some having bad bases or join times. Some make it out better then others, but it does mean we have cases like Odin and Zero in there where they just can't keep up and actually can have trouble from the get-go when you obtain them in later difficulties.

Villager is interesting if it can only be inherited by the children. With Garou, Dark Prince/Princess and Fox Spirit, it would make sense that the spouses and buddies wouldn't have normal access to it since the classes are tied to a group by blood, so neither the spouse or buddies would be able to transform since they never inherited the ability. With Villager however, nothing about it implies that it's tied to blood, so logically it should be available to the spouses/buddies as well since all it requires is a change in their careers.

XanderxCharlotte SetsunaxNishiki RyomaxElise I've also found myself liking a lot of Flannel's and Arthur's supports. The former bounces off well with the other characters due to his personality while Arthur's are just hilarious to read.

I don't think any of us are trying to use this support as an example of how Fates is terrible and IS should be burned for it. Hell, most of the complainers here love the game or at least think positively of it, but that doesn't mean that when a flaw pops up, they're not going to complain about it. At the end of the day, the support does have the main character, who we're supposed to be projecting on, drug someone without their consent and putting them into a state where they're not in the right mind. That is still questionable behavior and would of course raise red flags for those reading it. We're not trying to "burn Fates to the ground," we're criticizing an element of it that we don't like, and that can happen even with games we like.

I honestly would say they should change it, it reflects horribly of both of the characters. It reflects badly on Kamui because he drugged her in the first place without her prior knowledge, changing who she was, and Soleli for completely overlooking that fact and still falling in love with him even though he basically forced her into that state against her will. It also doesn't help that the last few lines gives some pretty dark "I own you now" vibes as Twylis said. Even if it was for the sake of humor, it's a terrible way to build a relationship with these characters and they could've done a lot better then this mess of a support.