spd12

Hearing about the Kris stuff, it makes me wonder what the intended age demographic was for the game in question over in Japan - the A CERO rating makes me think that maybe it was intended specifically for younger players that weren't around for the Famicom days. That sort of 'yay, you, you are awesome' thing is probably meant to appeal to the very young. Thinking about it, it may well be that the intended audience for more modern Fire Emblem games skewed younger until recently for If/Fates (which got a C CERO rating, almost certainly due to Skinship). There does feel like a level of discomfort in Conquest's writing like they wanted to go further with the idea, they wanted to really delve deeper into the darkness... but could really only skim the surface. Their ideas of ambiguous and morally gray may not completely mesh with ours, culturally speaking, within the scope of the writing.

Actually... [spoiler=Pre-Split Chapters, then Conquest spoilers]Yes, his orders at the time were, in fact, to kill Corrin and Gunther by order of King Garon himself after sparking off the war - he says so outright. (The fact he does this kind of does set the table of 'Hoshido good guys, Nohr bad guys' a little too handily, I think...) I don't recall exact details, but he appeared to largely try to stay 'professional' about it all in the wake of Corrin's return. When Corrin says 'no, stop' to the massacre he does in front of you later on in chapter 13, he uses his 'nervous' portrait as if to say 'uh, yeah, I can't, it's the king's orders.' This is why it's so very interesting to me that he claims that Corrin relished in murdering the Cheve rebels in front of King Garon - it's inconsistent with much of his previous characterization. If he's all about saving face in fulfilling orders as to have what he really seeks out of doing so, that seemed almost a professional courtesy on his part rather than any sort of overt apology for previous behavior. He's a hired thug, he knows it, he relishes in it - but I think if Corrin looked bad it'd reflect back onto him too since they were part of the same operation there. It still really could be just him saying it to annoy Corrin by the writers' intent (as he'd be in a position where he couldn't verbally nor physically retaliate for it), but that's just not how it came off to me. I'd like to think it was a grasp at character depth that doesn't get expanded upon.

If I could chime in, this may be a misconception on my part... but one character did do something that came off as interesting to me in Conquest. Something that no other character appears to bring up after the fact, so maybe it's a mistake, but... (as always, tagged below) [spoiler=Conquest]Hans at one point mentions that Corrin gleefully participated in the slaughter of Cheve rebels - we of course know this not to be true, Corrin tried to stop him from doing so. Why would he do that? If it's just to get under his skin, that would be silly and juvenile (and might have been the original intent of the writers). Given the way Nohr and especially Garon operates, though, it kind of came off to me like he was covering for Corrin. If he actually was, that would've been interesting to see a bit more of a spotlight on down the line. If they had anything interesting to say in Conquest c.26 if Corrin fought him, I didn't get to see... on grounds of Mozu being a monster on her magical murder bird (which is also a monster). On the whole, though, thanks for the write-up you did on Conquest! I've yet to play the others.

I'm coming off of completing Conquest. I have yet to play Birthright or Revelations. The weirdest thing of all about Conquest, to me, is that they tick off all the boxes in terms of proper foreshadowing of almost all the elements in play. The basic pieces of the plot are functional... but somehow, it ends up less than the sum of its parts. One of them is much more problematic than the others. (Conquest story spoilers in the spoiler section, obviously.)

I'm more than okay with the face touching minigame's removal, but I just want to know one thing, as it was something I'd have attempted if given the opportunity regardless. (Character spoilers below.) Thanks a bunch in advance, can't wait to play the Conquest route the moment it comes out here.