Azure Sen

Immobilize isn't and there aren't any plans to make it available to the player as far as I know, but Proximity Shot/Point Blank will become available in the second wave of DLC that was recently announced, taught by an item.

Making a character powerless can be a great way to get an audience to sympathize with a character, as long as it’s done well. But I personally found the opposite effect happened with me in Conquest, because it wasn’t done well; the more the narrative tried to convince me that Corrin was powerless, the more I found that they really weren’t and grew to actively dislike them. I disagree. Someone else brought up Camus, and I think that’s really an apt comparison to make, not just for Xander. The Nohr siblings are basically Camuses, except with loyalty to the nation replaced with familial love (and also extra murder threats). But this is more of a personal thing, so to each their own. And I’d argue against the point that actively rebelling against Garon is impossible and could only end in defeat and death, but that’s been discussed in depth previously in this thread. [spoiler=CONQUEST SPOILERS]That’s not why people, and I personally, think the whole Chapter 15/16 situation is nonsensical and stupid. It makes no sense to me for two very big reasons: First, Azura lets Corrin, and ONLY Corrin, see the crystal instead of waiting until they reunite with the other Nohr siblings. She waited until they were out of the Invisible Kingdom to show Corrin the crystal, so why not wait a little longer? It’s a really simple problem that could have been solved in a way that wasn’t just to railroad the narrative in a certain direction. Second, Corrin immediately decides that invading Hoshido and having Garon sit on the magic throne to reveal his true form is the only solution to their problem. Not only does this contradict their prior advocacy of pacifism, but they is in essence now wanting to sacrifice an entire nation for what is a very selfish goal. They make it clear that this is not a sacrifice for the sake of both countries, or even just for Nohr alone, but for the sake of their siblings. Corrin’s instant acceptance of the Hoshido Invasion plan is even dumber because he doesn’t even bother trying to think of another way they could solve the problem that wouldn’t require so much death and destruction. The game trying to paint it as the only solution and thus preserve Corrin's heroism (and paint it as some sort of grand sacrifice on their part) doesn't work in the narrative's favor either. Finally, the point about Garon being a decent dad when alive is moot because the only Nohr sibling who has good (or really any) memories of Garon as a parent is Xander. Leo and Elise were both very young when he died and was replaced, and Camilla was too embroiled in the conflicts between Garon’s concubines. All the other three have known of Garon is an abusive monster who constantly threatens to kill them. Why should they not at least entertain the idea that Garon has changed from the man Xander knew him as? I’m curious, what reasons do you have for Corrin doubting their decision on Birthright beyond it “being the natural reaction to making such a giant decision”? (Which I’d argue isn’t as much of a certainty as you present it as, but the debates on human nature should be for another time and place.) I mean, if the situation was grayer than presented in game, I’d agree that maybe Corrin should be doubting their decision on Birthright. But Corrin has plenty of reasons to not doubt their decision on Birthright: Garon has tried to kill them no more than three times in a short span of time and used them as a walking bomb in order to realize his ambitions of conquering Hoshido, and it’s just been revealed that Garon also kidnapped them as a child and wiped their memories so they wouldn’t remember being kidnapped. Corrin has no ties to Nohr aside from their siblings and their servants, and the latter would follow them no matter what regardless. As far as I can see, there’s no reason for Corrin to doubt their decision on Birthright, but I’d definitely like to hear your opinion. (Phew, that took a while! I think that's everything, but feel free to bring up anything I missed.)

Unfortunately, you'd have to do the prologue over again anyway, because Branches of Fate takes your level at the split and the difficulty from the last save file you started.

You're not the only one, I got the same feeling just from their interactions with Corrin in the pre-route split chapters. Camilla is the worst of the three (Xander, Camilla and Elise), but all three definitely have vibes of condescending to Corrin and talking down to them. It's part of what put me off of the Nohr siblings in the first place, honestly.

Having optional conversations that can be completely missed call Corrin out is not the same as the characters within the narrative, and even Micaiah herself, pointing out how horrible Micaiah's actions were. And those optional conversations are completely invalidated by the narrative's insistence that no one in Hoshido would understand what Corrin is doing and "the important people" forgiving Corrin (and Corrin forgiving themselves) in Conquest's ending anyway. (Not to mention that Micaiah literally had no choice because of the Blood Pact and was being manipulated by Lekain while Corrin was acting largely of their own free will, but Blood Pacts are a whole 'nother can of bad writing worms.) I'm pretty sure Nohrrin deciding to sacrifice Hoshido for the sake of his Nohrian siblings trumps Hoshido Corrin not going out of their way to spare any Nohrians on the "unnecessary casualties" count.

Micaiah at the very least recognized that what she was doing was wrong, but buckled down and committed to doing horrible things if it meant Daein's survival. Meanwhile the narrative of Fates goes out of its way to excuse Corrin for all of their negative actions during Conquest, and Corrin doesn't commit to their choice until Slime Garon is revealed to them.

Dark Song! Between the fantastic performance of Nohr's version of Lost in Thoughts All Alone and (Garons groans of increasing discomfort), it's hard to say I like any cutscene better.

Nah, Hans is an idiot who would charge into battle blindly despite the odds (and does so whenever he shows up as an ally) because he sees his troops as expendable. If it was Iago leading the reinforcements, you might be right. And Garon only spared the Ice Tribe because Corrin talked Kilma into surrendering after convincing him of their good intentions. There's little chance the Cheve rebels would agree to such a deal, if Scarlet's conversation with Corrin in Conquest 13 is any indication. I can't speak for anyone else, but Cheve was pretty much the final confirmation for me that no, Corrin can't change anything in Nohr and is completely powerless in the context of the narrative. (And, thinking back on it now, that Nohrrin really isn't good at thinking about the consequences of their actions.)

Eh, he probably would have shot her regardless, but this whole thing has been argued to death so let's just agree to disagree. You brought up Nohrian children in your post, so given how much flack Takumi gets for that, I assumed and I apologize. I won't make excuses for Takumi being a jerk to Azura, that was uncalled for, or for some of his other less than stellar behavior elsewhere.

I'm pretty slow too, especially when it comes with wordy stuff. But yeah, given that Hans was apparently under orders to wipe Cheve off the map, I don't think anything Corrin could have negotiated with them would have saved them. Heck, if Hans had showed up after negotiations, he probably would have taken it as an open invitation to take Corrin's head for "conspiring with the rebels."

Negotiate what, exactly? What power did Corrin have to negotiate anything with the Hoshido army? Why do people keep ignoring the fact that Elise, regardless of how she looks or acts, is a combatant who is willingly serving in the Nohr forces? I think BruceLee was more asking "why did Corrin think sparing the Cheve rebel forces was good idea," which I kind of agree with.

EDIT: I am just full of technical errors tonight. To summarize what I was going to say: politics aren't the problem here, nor are there presented as the reason why the royal sibs refuse to rebel against Garon.

Except in their Iwata Asks interview, Kibayashi confirmed that he was going for a story where both sides would be morally grey; the "evil" faction wouldn't actually be as evil as they first appeared, and the "good" faction wouldn't be as good as they first appeared. How much of this was excised from the script by the IS writing team is unknown, but the point is, they promised it and we didn't get it.

I'm still writing up responses to the rest, but: People weren’t expecting Nohr to be evil, which is why there’s been such a backlash towards Conquest, and IntSys didn’t need Nohr to be evil for there to be something to change about it. People were expecting them to be morally gray, doing things of questionable morality for the sake of something other than dog kicking. If Conquest had been a story of the aggressive and warlike (but not evil) Nohr being slowly shown that violence wasn’t the only way and overcoming their past history with Hoshido to pave the way for a peaceful future instead of what we got, there would probably be a lot less criticism. Easily? A country doing bad things, even for a good reason, and then trying to change their ways under the guidance of someone would have been a perfectly serviceable story.

[spoiler=I'LL DO IT RIGHT THIS TIME COACH, PLEASE DON'T BENCH ME]So...are we agreeing or disagreeing on this, I really can't tell at this point. But I would like to say that Iago would still be around, and Iago and Hans clearly symptoms of the real bad element's effects, not the actual problem itself (not that the characters themselves recognize this, but that's another discussion for hypothetical rewrites, perhaps). Given how Iago is only omnipotent when the story needs him to be, this isn't actually a concern, I think. My mistake, I didn't eloquently express what I meant to say. Devaluing anyone's argument like that, regardless of how many people it may or may not apply to within the group, is not helping your case. (It's a thing that's happened to me a lot, unfortunately.) And I can't speak for anyone else, but there are things I like about Conquest; they're just so overshadowed by the things I don't like (and the bad things are more commonly discussed, because it's often easier to talk about things you dislike rather than things you like) that it doesn't come up much.

[spoiler=MAJOR CONQUEST SPOILERS]Given that the Nohr siblings do eventually kill him and Iago and all of their soldiers in Conquest 26 when Iago and Hanz try to kill Corrin with the excuse of "well the Hoshidan remnants clearly killed them and their enitre army" at the ready for after the battle, I'm pretty sure they could have done something similar with the Cheve rebels. EDIT: I AM BAD AT SPOILER TAGS

Like I said, both Nohrrin and Nohrzura are to blame in this instance, it's just much more noticeable for Nohrrin because of how quickly they jump from "peace peace peace!" to "let's invade Hoshido so our siblings won't feel bad about killing their brutal dictator father!" Bolded: I think it's the opposite. Nohrrin gets dumber when IS is trying to portray him as a hero while still having Nohr be the bad guys. Dismissing people's mostly legitimate complaints about Conquest by calling them bitter really isn't helping your case. So Hoshido casualties don't count?

Because Corrin doesn't bother even trying to figure out a way to expose Garon that doesn't involve sacrificing the people of another nation to do so, and seems awfully quick to go through with their plans despite their desires for peace. It's contrived simply to make Corrin still look like a hero even when they're supporting the invasion of Hoshido. But they're hardly the only guilty party here. Plus, you know, the singer thing, which is just monumentally dumb.

Well, given that whole "magically wiping your memory to forget that you were kidnapped" thing, on top of everything else, I think he has far more reason to suspect Corrin of being brainwashed in Conquest than Xander, Camilla and (if I remember correctly) Leo do on Birthright.

That really doesn't qualify as dark nor betrayal for me. Maybe if the whole Trojan horse/attempted murder thing didn't happen, or your Nohr siblings at large didn't dismiss your claims as the result of brainwashing. That's pretty much what killed any doubts I had about picking Hoshido, honestly. Their response isn't "we can protect you from Father, but not if you stay with Hoshido" or "there must be a misunderstanding, come back home so we can clear this up" (which is one of Corrin's justifications for returning to Nohr in Conquest!), but that you must be brainwashed. Because clearly their obviously evil father who locked you away in isolation and, would never do that. But yeah, Conquest is definitely the darker path, in my opinion.

Birthright. While Conquest largely has the more interesting map design, on average I enjoyed Birthright's characters and story far more.

Takumi, which was surprising given how he was a jerk initially, but his supports won me over. Honorable mentions go to Oboro, Leo, Kiragi, and Azura.

They won't have higher weapon ranks but they will be higher leveled. I recruited Izana around Chapter 17 Birthright and he was lv. 5 promoted, while Yukimura joined after Birthright 23 lv. 10 promoted (the earliest you can get both of them), so they'd probably be 15 or 20 around endgame.

Honestly, this is annoying for me too, especially compared with how FE4 went out of its way to account for things like this. Adding another layer of annoying on top of everything else is the fact that they went through so much effort to provide lines for the My Room interactions, but apparently couldn't be bother writing and programming in a few extra lines from Shigure, and Azura's spouse and other kid acknowledging, you know, their wife and mother just died. Or Kana's other parent acknowledging the enemies threatening them and giving an equally awesome boast. None of the other parents apparently care about their children risking their necks/being in danger. If Corrin has another kid, that kid won't acknowledge Corrin outside supports. But at least there are voiced lines for the My Room stuff. It's even worse when you compare it to Awakening, where several events were different based on who Chrom or Lucina married.

Honestly, I thought the level was actually really well thought out and enjoyably hectic until the Dragon's Vein event happened. Then it basically became "dash back to the exit and turtle and hope none of your units die," or at least that's how I was able to handle it.