semolinaro

I have now completed both campaigns. I had really high hopes for Conquest but the story was so abysmal that I wonder if I can pick it up again in the near future. Birthright had a much better story, but the gameplay and characters can't compare to that of Conquest. Since story is so important to me though, my vote goes to Birthright. For those who have completed both paths, which did you prefer in the end?

Oh! Another good one I forgot to mention is 'new power'. It plays on the second last chapter of Conquest when the Yato is given its most powerful form, and during the preparations screen. It's chill inducing.

What's your favourite in game song? On Birthright side, Justice RIP gives me chills (goes well with criticals too) and on Conquest it's a tie between Dark Wastes and Dusk Falls.

it's hard to say is Sakura and Elise are legal adults. They are portrayed as small, baby-faced girls, but in Elise's supports people are telling Elise to 'grow up' and act like a woman. They can also bear healthy children so... it's hard to say. But I like to think they're 12-14, and just not marry them off because the idea of them having babies is ehhh.

Aether is a beautiful skill... super useful and also epic in execution. In Fates, a lot of my skills haven't been triggered, but the Dragon Fang skill looks really cool. It looks like avatar loses control of his power when striking... epic.

THIS. There is absolutely no justification for joining Nohr other than not turning your back on your siblings, which is not even a good enough reason since they all follow Garon blindly and for some reason refuse to believe that he tried to kill you. And to make matters worse, when you do end up joining Nohr, you're just trying to 'save' the Hoshidans by... mass murdering their army and conquering their country.

What supports do you like the most in Fates? As of now, the one that made me laugh the most was the one between Kagero and Jakob... super charming and drew me into their characters.

Good point! I was just downright shocked at how black and white everything is portrayed, and lacking solid worldbuilding to go along with it. And as mentioned by Roflolxp54, while Hoshido has done a few questionable things, it can't even compare to the barbarism of Garon and Nohr. Wasn't Conquest's story just awful? Like... so many deaths could have been prevented, and Azura is an absolute airhead. I could rant all day but I'm sure it's already been discussed. I did end up reading your post about Conquest's story and agreed with all of it (even chuckled at how accurate your summary was).

I finished Conquest last week and now I'm onto Birthright. In my honest opinion, Conquest's story was just plain awful in many aspects... so much so that it even took away from the stellar gameplay. Story is so important to me, it's what motivates me to play through the challenges of the game. Among the many things, the worst offender of the plot is how black and white the two warring kingdoms are. And it's hard to overlook. Nohr bad, Hoshido good. That's it. No skeletons in the closet for Hoshido. You can't make a game about a moral choice when one side is clearly the good 'right choice' and the other is evil with no redeeming qualities. After what went down in the Hoshido capital and what Garon tried to do to you with the Ganglari, you look like a total idiot for siding with Nohr. And to make matters worse, the good side is the 'all righteous GLORIOUS NIPPON.' It's so blatant it hurts, it just reeks of nationalism. Japan, while it's an awesome country in many ways, constantly denies its past wrongdoings. Their atrocities in WWII make the nazis look like boy scouts, and children in schools are fed lies about their histories and that they 'helped' the countries they invaded. I can't help but feel like nationalism influenced the development of the game, because in past fire emblems, the wars were never so black and white. Even the war between Ylisse and Plegia in Awakening demonstrated some good grey morality: Plegians were committing grave war crimes and atrocities against Ylisse, but only because Ylisse's previous ruler crusaded their country and pillaged and plundered them to the bare, and even sent their own people into the pits. Each one is an offender, no one is holy, and it gave me a new outlook on how I view Ylisse, a supposedly peaceful halidom with a brutal past and some skeletons in the closet. I don't know, maybe I'm reading into this too much, but I'm also curious as to what people think about this.