Axie

happy birthday! shame about the 2% crit, and i agree the game design isn't at fault for this. if that's any consolation, which it probably isn't.

technically sword-locked characters are also great in gaiden/echoes, but that's to be expected when axes are not playable and the only characters to wield two different types of attack are promoted alm and priestesses. swordmasters are also not bad in fates since it's a game with actual ranged swords (you can get a kodachi in conquest, right?). speaking of midori, it's not really a wrong belief i have/had because i always knew she is kaze's daughter, but whenever i read her name i immediately think "oh, mozu's daughter", and i don't even know why. i didn't even pair kaze and mozu in my first fates playthrough or anything. i only did it in a later playthrough after i realized i kept thinking of midori as mozu's daughter anyway.

i think kris was competently added to the storyline and that marth is a better character for having kris with him in NM. tears? the supports are mostly boring and pointless though.

since that didn't happen, i actually wouldn't mind if they replaced the replacement characters with thracia people (karin over femina, etc). even if they are gameplay bad compared to the kids, it would add a lot of replayability because people would want to check them out eventually.

this thread could have ended on this stellar post also all these attempts at comparing fire emblem to anime all the time are getting old. it's not the same media, you guys.

you didn't play, so it's only logical you don't know, but this game works way differently from fates and awakening to NOT have replacements, though. you eventually lose all of your characters and need the new ones to function, while the children in fates and awakening are entirely optional. you can miss pairings in gen 1, and you need the replacements if you do. also, how would the children even work in gameplay if you are saying they show up even if the mother is unpaired? how would their bases and growths be calculated? i don't see a genealogy remake removing the replacement dynamic, and i don't think they should. you'd just have to live with never having all the available characters, i suppose. speaking of replacements, i wouldn't mind if they were a bit better. not that better that you'd rather have them over pairing the mother, but some replacements are just so lame. i guess removing pursuit as a skill concept fixes a lot of that, though. DOUBLING FOR EVERYONE.

YESSSSSSSS i wouldn't put gaiden here because it honestly tried to be something for a 1990 NES game but YESSSSSS drag fates writing to FILTH. so happy that birthright brought this realization. it's every bit as bad as conquest and revelation. with that said, i think birthright is being a bit undersold on difficulty here. it seems appropriate to rank it with radiant dawn - a game that, in its hard mode, is harder than birthright when it's not GM chapters - but blazing blade is definitely easier when it's not doing fog of war or kishuna shenaningans for example. maybe +2 and -2 tiers for difficulty would be good if you want to value it more, even if you keep birthright at 0 - it seems 0 and -4 are a bit crowded right now.

kris in second even with a "none" option (which i expected to lead)? VICTORY

i don't know why they decided to make the endgame of birthright 1-turnable when conquest and revelation aren't (sure, chapter 27 in revelation is 1-turnable, but endgame isn't). that makes it underwhelming. and chapter 27 is pretty fun too! kind of weird. congratulations on finishing birthright!

every recurring anna from now on should be dating a recurring jake, the anna extended fire emblem universe needs more lore

sigurd/deirdre AND eliwood/ninian are anemic pairings that bring their storylines down (and BlaBla's storyline is already almost in the mariana trench lol) and micaiah/sothe have a much better dynamic for the storyline of their game than both of those two. the best main lord pairing the games actively suggest is ike/soren. tears?

i think elise's death scene is jaw-droppingly stupid and the crowning jewel of birthright's "this IS as bad as conquest and revelation" storyline. everything about it is sooooo pointless. it only isn't as bad as flora setting herself on fire because that wasn't a cutscene and therefore looked ridiculous.

YOU ARE NOT ALONE avatars seem to have gotten progressively worse in my opinion. at least in the games i have played. is byleth worse than corrin? is it possible to be worse than corrin??

my first in-depth exposure to anything three houses (i only know broad strokes of the storyline, and a bit more of how the gameplay works) will be your evisceration of it. i have high expectations and i don't even care about being spoiled. i am so excited.

well, that's just fates being badly written, isn't it? i think it could be pulled off. she could even still be a songstress (better at surviving hits though, i guess). speaking of writing, i just finished new mystery again and it's definitely my second favourite FE AND i really enjoy the writing, specially of the avatar and katarina, in it. i think i am nearly alone in this opinion with how unpopular it is, but i don't care. people call this game's main story a lot of lore dumping, but i don't think that does it justice, and that's only really true in chapters 11 to 14, which are the game's low point in gameplay too (not a fan of the sudden difficulty spike - and then chapter 15 is immediately easier lol).