vanguard333

It's just what I keep hearing about it; that the 1st gen story deconstructs the typical Kaga-era FE formula and then the 2nd gen reconstructs it. As I said, I haven't played the game so I don't know much about the story beyond the plot summaries I've read and what I've seen people say about it on this forum.

I have yet to do a Blue Lions playthrough, so I'm mainly just looking at what people recommend. I'm surprised to see people recommend Fortress Knight. I know Dedue is pretty much built for it, but I thought that most players thought it wasn't very viable because of its low movement and -10% speed growth modifier (not that Dedue has much of a speed growth to begin with). I second everyone saying that you should make Felix an assassin, not just because Mortal Savant isn't really viable, but also because you're currently lacking an assassin unit. I know Ashe's personal skill is a free locktouch, but it's good to have a dedicated thief so you're not storing up on door keys and chest keys, and so you can steal items (though the latter was rarely that useful in the two Three Houses playthroughs I have done so far). There's nothing wrong with that.

Gen one's ending is part of the deconstruction; liking the story for that moment and liking it for being a deconstruction & reconstruction are not inherently different reasons as one is part of the other.

Unpopular opinion: I actually quite like Micaiah & Sothe. I don't think it's anything amazing, and it does have some problems, but I still like it. People say they're too much like brother & sister and, well, speaking as someone who has a sister: I don't see it. The dynamic that the two of them have is not a sibling one, and it's obvious that they care for each other in a way that's unlike that of siblings. Even Ike suspects as much in a base conversation with Micaiah in part 4. Plus, I like the banter between them in part 1 whenever Sothe mentions Ike: Sothe: “Entering Gallia by yourselves would be nearly impossible. The man you need to get you into Gallia actually resides in Crimea. That man, Ike, is in contact with King Caineghis and his advisors. There’s no doubt in my mind that he’s the man you need.” Micaiah: “Right. Lord Ike, hero of the Crimean Liberation, leader of the Greil Mercenaries, and father of Sothe’s children…” I can't comment on the quality of its story as I haven't played it, but I think the main reason most people like it is that it is a deconstruction & reconstruction of an FE narrative.

I suppose. I just think it's convenient to have what is essentially a free locktouch before I have any thief units, and an additional locktouch after I have a thief unit. It's niche, but it's nice to have.

I agree with this. I mean, someone from our world ending up in a fantasy realm is a concept with a ton of potential, so it's weird that the most common thing Isekai use it for is wish-fulfillment and harem-building. It says something that the only Isekai I've watched is a parody of that stuff. Perhaps what makes that trope even worse for me is that the very first anime I ever watched (and enjoyed) was a complete aversion of that stuff: it was a Japanese & Canadian show called Spider Riders with a magical subterranean world called Arachna. In it, the protagonist doesn't get hit by a truck or anything; in fact, rather uniquely among "character goes from our world into a magical world" stories, he deliberately goes looking to find Arachna to prove that his late grandpa's stories about there being such a place were true, there's no harem-building or anything, he has to earn his place in the elite warrior class (the titular Spider Riders, called that because they ride giant armored spiders into battle) and people initially regard him with suspicion because there's a prophecy that a human from our world (as they call it, the "Outer World") will bring great doom upon Arachna and be the greatest threat it ever experiences.

Are you kidding, or do people actually consider it one of the worst? It's a free locktouch that's available without Ashe having to be a thief/assassin/trickster. This allows him to open doors and chests early-game when all your characters are still in the noble/commoner class, so no having to buy chest keys and door keys and you can sell the ones you get from enemies for a little extra cash in the early game. Sure, since he's an archer and you'll probably have someone else like Petra or Felix become an assassin, it's best to have him go down the archer/sniper class tree and pick off enemies from a great distance, so it'll only be situationally useful after everyone starts promoting. But what's wrong with situationally useful? It's not ideal, but it isn't bad. I made my Marianne a dancer (she has her own magic sword, it lets her use magic, her flying boon makes it easy to obtain movement +1, so it's actually really viable for her), so she does usually end up close to one of my units by the end of the turn because of her dance ability. I don't have her fight very often, but the few times I do would explain her taking damage. 20% doesn't make much of a difference, especially because she's not my only healer, but it makes more of a difference than Linhardt's 10%. Her personal is extremely situational and limited, but there being situations at all makes it better than Linhardt's.

The 2nd trailer for Stories 2 finally released, revealing a lot more new information about the game: I also thought this trailer release would be a good time to create a discussion thread for this game. I only played the demo of the original game, but it was fantastic, and this game looks like it'll be great. Also, am I just hearing things, or does the Wyverian girl have the same voice actor as BOTW-Zelda? EDIT: I didn't realize until after I posted this that this new trailer was part of a huge announcement for both this game and Rise. Should I modify this thread into a discussion thread for the whole announcement or leave it as it is?

I had no idea Jake was a recurring character, as the FE games that I've played are: Path of Radiance, Radiant Dawn, Shadow Dragon, Awakening, Fates, Echoes and Three Houses, and I bolded the only one of those in which he appeared. I suppose it would be neat to see Jake return.

To be fair, there are lots of ways to play with the "chosen hero" trope, and most stories these days don't play it 100% straight; instead trying to play with it in ways that suck out less of the suspense. Yeah, I can agree with that in general (just with a few exceptions; a certain plot event in Black Clover that I can't say without spoilers coming to mind). For me, the biggest problem with it is that a person's free will is a powerful thing, so it feels cheap when a writer pulls those tropes just to make characters do something they wouldn't normally do. Thankfully, there is one variant of the mind-control trope that's becoming increasingly popular and averts this problem (and is less lazy): More Than Mind Control. More Than Mind Control - TV Tropes Basically, the person doing the controlling uses a combination of mind-control/possession/brainwashing and psychological manipulation to exploit a person's free will rather than undermine it. A classic example of this trope is the One Ring from The Lord of the Rings, and more recent examples include pretty much every recent example of a hypnotist villain; now that it's popular knowledge that hypnotism can't do anything that the person doesn't want to do on some level, every recent example of hypnotist villains are written as getting around that by also being good at psychological manipulation and "getting inside people's heads".

Maybe it was trying to say that, because of Robin's amnesia, they (Robin) didn't know what it was, and the group didn't take notice of it because the thing they're focused on is Robin's amnesia? I don't know. In the prologue, once Robin's amnesia is made clear, Chrom decides that they'll discuss both the amnesia and what to do with Robin when they get to town. Of course, the town's being attacked by bandits when they get there, and Robin helping them stop the bandits proves (in Chrom's eyes anyway) that Robin's no enemy of Ylisse. So, presumably, by the time anyone might've noticed the brand, Robin's already part of the group. The weird thing about the prologue is that Chrom and them observe that the bandits have Plegian accents, yet, by omission, they seem to not hear anything strange about Robin's voice. I know Robin was taken away from Plegia by their mother, but wouldn't they still have an accent from being raised by said mother?

True; they probably had enough room for adding two extra words on the GameCube disc. That's why I said, "You probably think I'm joking with that last remark... and I am." I've never played any of those three games you listed as other examples. I've heard of Sonic Adventure 2 though (despite never really being interested in Sonic games); depending on which Sonic fans you ask, it's either the first of the bad Sonic games or the last of the good Sonic games (aside from Sonic Mania in that second case). Anyway, what did you think of my main point?

The intent of that scene was almost-certainly that she was expressing confusion and disbelief at such a ridiculous and bizarre claim. Of course, it doesn't really come across because this was 2002 and Nintendo and full voice acting did not mix well at the time (and one could argue that they still don't sometimes) as well as poor wording. This could've easily been cleared up by adjusting her line to have her say, "Mama? Mama Peach? You think I'm your... Mama?", but it could be that there wasn't enough space on the GameCube disc for two more words of fully-voiced dialogue. You probably think I'm joking with that last remark... and I am, but fully-voiced dialogue takes up a lot of space. The biggest piece of evidence against the claim is that, at the end of the game, not only is Bowser about to admit to his son that he was lying about Peach being the boy's mother, but Bowser Jr. admits that he already knew the whole time that Bowser was lying to him.

Sorry I'm late to this conversation Except that example isn't an example of what she was talking about because her example was, "if the entire cast fought with machine guns and there was no mention of ninjutsu". That example you bring up is an example of one character bringing in a machine gun when, as you point out, the whole point of it is the rise of new technology and whether or not ninjas and ninjutsu are becoming obsolete; ninjutsu is still brought up a lot in that in that story arc with Boruto and the other characters involved using ninjutsu and with Boruto trying to convince that character that he (the other character) still is fundamentally a shinobi. That's completely different from if, for instance, Boruto's setting was nothing but machine guns and there was no mention of ninjutsu anywhere. One could easily argue that that shift in animation was ill-fitting for the given situation, and that would be an objective and valid criticism. This is arguably supposed to be a scary and intense moment: Naruto has sunk into a despair-fueled rage against Pain and has unleashed the nine-tails to a far greater degree than ever seen previously; going six-tailed and later eight-tailed, and the remaining Pain can only flee and defend itself. This is a scary and intense series of events: the last Pain body vs Naruto's rage and despair completely unleashed... and the goofy style is more befitting a fight meant for a bit of levity. This is not the moment for comedy, and everything else in this moment reflects the seriousness of the situation, so the goofy animation style sticks out like a sore thumb.

@Jotari What did you think of the additional point I brought up (namely that we don't know how Anankos killed him, but it was likely in a way that there wasn't much of a body left)?

I see. …I can't really think of anything else to say.

Oh, okay. Isn't Heirs of Fate a sort-of elseworlds/bad-future thing?

Oh, don't get me wrong; I think we're all in agreement that Fates' writing and exposition is horrendous. Uh... I'm sorry; I don't understand what you're saying. I haven't played Heirs of Fate, and I don't understand what you mean by "he had [them] back"; could please be a bit more clear?

I agree with everyone pointing out that Anankos killing Azura's father was the thing that brought about his final descent into madness and is something he'd want to avoid remembering, especially since, in his mad rants, he refers to himself as "the betrayed king", suggesting that his madness had led to false, self-serving memories. Adding to that, there might also be a simple practical reason: depending on how exactly Anankos killed him, there might've been nothing left to reanimate. With Garon, Mikoto, Sumeragi, etc., he had complete corpses to work with, and Arete died from the curse he himself created, so her body that vanished was probably brought before him by the curse or something like that. With Azura's father, however, he probably ate him, destroyed him with his dragon breath, or tore him to literal shreds with his claws. So, there'd be nothing left except dragon poop, charred bones, or tiny irreparable pieces.

Human transmutation isn't illegal; it's a taboo among alchemists and, given the way characters talk about it, was labelled a taboo by alchemists after seeing the result of attempting it, and not something Father himself imposed. The fact that multiple alchemists can deduce that Edward and Alphonse committed the taboo by seeing Ed's missing limbs and Al's missing body supports this. Father could not control whether or not alchemists were willing to commit the taboo, so he did everything in his power to assemble enough sacrifices by creating the State Alchemist system to keep as many alchemists close as possible while also having his minions constantly scouting to find any other alchemists who have committed the taboo or who can be manipulated or pushed into committing it. That's the reason they consider Roy a candidate despite him not committing the taboo (as they believed they could get him to commit it under the right circumstances); not counting on Edward finding out from Hohenheim that human transmutation cannot ever create anything more than a soulless cadaver and telling Roy this.

I left her out because the story largely treated her as irrelevant; she was a side-character at most and little more than another villager. After the prologue, she has almost no screentime whatsoever. Of course, one could argue that the script spending any time at all on her and her obsession with Alm was too much time (and I'd completely agree with that argument).

I don't really get the joke/10

I still maintain that it should've been Edelgard rather than Byleth. Yeah, I agree; I can understand a bit of frustration at a seeming waste of potential variety. I understand why there are so many swordfighters in Smash: so many fantasy protagonists, when given a weapon, are usually given a sword. But there are multiple major characters that are magic users, axe fighters, spear fighters, archers, etc., that they could choose from. Zelda definitely could make a great magic rods or staves user, as could Micaiah from Radiant Dawn (alongside light magic).

I see; I didn't know if you did know it or not, so I made my statement with the definition included both as a "just in case" and in case someone else who didn't know what verisimilitude is also reads it. Forgive me; your view just seemed rather binary because of statements like, "Fiction is inherently unrealistic" and probably because I'm a bit too used to these discussions and might've failed to notice the differences. For that, I apologize. Perhaps one thing that would help would be to provide examples; you say "they" a lot and bring in non-specific examples, and I think something more specific might help with clarification. Perhaps an actual comment or a clip from a review video or something like that. For instance, you bring up Naruto in this reply; perhaps maybe a clip or quote of that "Naruto: the Self-Made Hypocrite" video on YouTube that has a lot of views for some reason. Just something specific to help me get a better sense of what you're referring to, because right now, all I have to work with are generalizations, which don't really help my autistic (and I'm using that in the literal sense: I have autism) brain understand your points. You make a good point. For an example from actual media, people who are supposed to be experts on medieval warfare sending a huge thing of light cavalry directly into an army that badly outnumbers them, and at night no less, while also putting all their siege engines on the front line, outside the castle. GoT Season 8 episode 3; that was really bad. These are things that even people who are not experts in medieval warfare were able to point out were dumb.

@Ottservia Again, I got this weird feeling that I was able to predict everything you were going to say. How many times have we have variations of this discussion across different threads? I can think of around 6 off the top of my head. Oh, wait, I just noticed that you said, "I know I've said this like a million times by this point"; never mind. Anyway, what do you mean when you say "realism"? Realism in narrative is broadly defined as representing reality, but that can mean different things depending on the context. For instance, it can refer to a grounded narrative, it can mean a less stylized narrative, and lately, it's been misused a lot to mean "gritty, dark, pseudo-edgy narrative" as part of a fad that I hope dies very soon so we can move on from all this poorly-written pseudo-edgy nonsense. There are even subgenres of literary realism that approach "representing reality" in different ways based on different definitions. You seem to think of "representing reality" in very binary terms, and you even use words that have multiple definitions as if you're using the same definition both times when you're really not; it's a common logical fallacy that's easy to do accidentally that I learned about in a critical thinking course that I took. I think the term closer to what you're looking for when you mention realism and believability is a term that's more often used to describe the effect of certain editing techniques and stuff like that, but still very much applies here: it's verisimilitude: the plausibility of a fictional work within the bounds of its own genre. Essentially, it's talking about how well the viewing audience can buy in or suspend disbelief, but in objective terms where stuff like suspension of disbelief is more subjective. You're right in that a work of fiction is inherently unrealistic; it cannot 100% mirror reality and still be an interesting narrative. However, a narrative still needs to be verisimilitudinous; it still needs to be a work that is intuitive for the audience to be able to buy in (again, in objective terms). For an example that Wikipedia was kind enough to provide, "In the production of the classic superhero film, Superman, director Richard Donner had a picture of the title character holding a sash with the word "verisimilitude" on it in his office during the project. That display was to remind Donner that he intended to approach the story of the fantasy superhero in a way true to the source material that would make it feel intuitively real to the audience within the context of the story's world. The result was a highly acclaimed film that would set the standard for a film genre that would become dominant decades later." In other words, where a lesser director (cough Zach Snyder cough) might look at the superhero genre as inherently silly & unrealistic and ultimately overcompensate when directing a superhero movie, Donner instead remembered that what actually mattered was that the film be intuitive for the audience to buy in. The results speak for themselves with the first two Donner Superman movies being widely acclaimed to this day. In this regard, when people are criticizing something being "unrealistic" or "unbelievable", often (not always, but often) they are really talking about a moment where the story failed to maintain verisimilitude. For the example of a character's emotional reaction being unrealistic, they are often not talking about the reaction being unrealistic to them, but unrealistic given what's been established about the character. That intuitiveness is broken by an ill-fitting reaction. Plot holes, plot contrivances and inconsistencies similarly break the story's verisimilitude. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood says hi. Seriously, the attention to detail in that show is amazing and one of the things I most enjoy about it, alongside the compelling characters, narrative and magic system. Anyway, no one is expecting stories to be completely perfect, but problems in a narrative are still worth pointing out to prevent them from happening again. Without criticism or feedback, how do we expect to improve? A couple of small problems are blemishes in an otherwise good story, while a story riddled with holes, contrivances and inconsistencies (cough The Last Jedi cough) are bad stories because the rest is not enough.