Slumber

Xander's actions in story supersede Xander's words in supports. Plus, we're mostly talking about Birthright Xander here, where for all intents and purposes, support Xander doesn't exist.

The problem is that "protecting Nohr" for most of Xander's story means obeying Garon. Of all the siblings, Xander is far and away the one the most hesitant to disobey Garon, which comes with a LOT of baggage and villainous deeds/actions. This extends to Corrin in Conquest.

People love Ike, but saleswise, Tellius sold even less than the Jugdral games(Mostly carried by Genealogy since Thracia sold like crap, but still).

But the thing is, hero is basically synonymous with "good guys" or "good side". We don't say somebody like Eddie Brock or Flash Thompson Venom are "anti-heroes", we say they're "anti-villains", since they're ultimately vigilantes that protect normal people, but they violently murder and want to kill Spider-Man, the good guy. The Punisher, meanwhile, is an anti-hero who does all the same things, but usually allies himself with the good guys. Xander allies himself with and emboldens the bad guys. He's a villain. He's an anti-villain, but he's a villain.

I'm in the camp that expects more Archanae(Including Alm), FE: Switch, and Elibe.

Didn't Ghast conclude that support Xander and story Xander are basically two different people? And that story Xander is actually a conflicted bad guy, while support Xander is basically the one with all the noble traits?

Xander blindly fights for the bad guys and ends up murdering his own sister. He even admits how much he fucked up when he dies.

I've had this argument so many times when I tried to argue that Kratos from God of War is a villain protagonist. But yes, Xander in Birthright is a villain. Camus is a villain. A handful of Camus' AREN'T inherently villainous, though. It's case by case(Eldigan and the Reeve brothers, for example, I'd say aren't villainous Camus' archetypes).

For throwing up, you can get an extra high jump by holding it up and jumping on it. I, for the life of me, can't get it to work consistently, so I rarely use it. Don't know why you'd toss it down.

Heyo. Just some advice, most of the DLC for the 3DS FEs is for grinding purposes and extra skills/classes that don't really add much to the game. For Awakening, there's a lot of decent DLC challenge maps and people tend to like the alternate timeline DLCs that expand on the story of the children, so just know ahead of time before you go and spend a bunch of money on DLC that you don't really need like I did. And grats on graduating. I was SUPPOSED to graduate in the spring, but my plans got royally screwed, so now I have to postpone my graduation(Again) until next fall.

I somehow completely blanked on that. I've always remembered the Tower as "Oh shit guys, there's a Goddess that wants to purge humanity at the top, we need to plow through these guys ASAP."

Thunder was effective against Dragons and Wyvern riders in PoR/RD, IIRC. The fire parallel would have been to be make fire effective against horsies, but that might have made fire magic OP, since those are way more prevalent than Wyverns and Peggies. It was effective against beast Laguz, though.

Right, but IIRC, there's no base preparations/convos in the Tower, and the idea is that the army is hauling ass to the top. Not really the ideal time to sit around and have Ike reminisce with Elincia or say "Hey, I know we tried to murder each other, but we cool now?" to Micaiah

Some sort of division in the Magic system should be reintroduced. Cramming them all together made Magic feel incredibly generic and made Mages feel less unique. A triangle system would likely go along with this.

The problem with supporting Ike, Elincia and Micaiah is that they're the leaders of their respective armies, and thus are literally never deployable together until the endgame, where I'd be surprised to see any kind of supporting.

Worst to best: Fates trio: Even the best of them is pretty damn bad, the worst of them being downright insulting. The villains across all 3 being the most cartoonishly evil and nobody with any dignity really questioning them for most of the game is just frustrating. There's so much wrong with these three. Conquest gets some kudos for at least trying something interesting, but it fails just as bad as the other two. It just has a slightly more compelling premise. Sacred Stones: This one suffers from bad pacing, a ton of filler, and really, really lackluster story-telling anytime Lyon isn't interacting with Eirika or Ephraim(Except that one case with Eirika, which is one of the dumbest moments of any FE protagonist), which is a surprisingly little amount of an already story-light game. Magvel is also just a disjointed mess of a continent. The lack of world-building really hurts it. The villains also randomly warping around the map purely to advance the plot is some of the laziest writing in the franchise. Awakening: The first arc is solid. The game kind of takes a nosedive when Emmeryn dies, and it plummets when Gangrel's dealt with. The Walhart arc feels like pure filler, and Validar is such a goofy, dumb, completely evil villain that the Grimleal chunk of the game is nearly impossible to get invested in. But again, it does at least have a solid first chunk, which is a sizeable part of the game. Shadows of Valentia: There's a rather large jump in quality between Awakening's writing and SoV's. SoV's plot isn't necessarily bad like the last few entries, but it's lacking in some areas, and there are a few conveniences that advance the plot in questionable ways(IE Celica getting mad at Alm, Celica's random dreams that cause her to fall for Jedeh's plan). But it remains somewhat believable and engaging, and the leaps in logic aren't nearly as big as the bottom 3 games. Elibe: As a whole, this is a solid, contained story throughout these two games. I'd rank 6 above 7, since 7 is more about the character interactions than the actual story of Hector, Eliwood and Lyn than it is the group chasing down Nergal and stopping him from opening the Dragon Gate. They also introduce a plothole/retcon that comes out of nowhere to explain why, if Eliwood marries Ninian, she isn't around for FE6. The Elibean atmosphere being toxic to dragons is nowhere in FE6, and Fae, Idoun and her soulless offspring don't seem to mind at all. FE6 works better overall as a story, even if it is more or less a shameless retelling of Marth's story. Archanea: This one's pretty standard and middle of the road. The actual story here is nothing super remarkable, but it does world building amazingly well, and it set damn near every template and archetype that the rest of the series would follow nearly to a T for most entries to come. FE3 is generally more compelling, but I'm a sucker for "Friends must now face each other as enemies" stories. Tellius: IMO, there's another noticeable jump in story telling from Archanea to Tellius. I think PoR is the stronger between the two, due to its consistency, but RD has a lot of highs with its story as well. The themes it tackles aren't anything ground breaking, but they're done well, and it's surprising to see things like slavery, racism and classism handled seriously in a major Nintendo title(Not that Fire Emblem hasn't done darker before, but we'll get to that). Ike, while I'm not hot on him as a character, IS a breath of fresh air as a completely normal dude who rises to being a war hero and lord. SoV/Gaiden would have probably ranked higher if Alm was just a country bumpkin, and not royalty destined to be great from the outset. Radiant Dawn being probably the most epic(In the grander sense) story FE tried to tell gets brownie points, even if it falters with Micaiah in some cases, and specifically with the Blood Pact. There's a really good story gasping for air somewhere in RD that just only occasionally manages to breach the surface, before going back under. Jugdral: It goes without saying, to some degree. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, and that Genealogy and Thracia are far from perfect stories, but they also tackle some pretty heavy themes and subject matter, and, IMO, they handle them pretty well. They're probably the most "adult" stories ever in a first party Nintendo title. And I do like how Sigurd's story is handled, as a headstrong lord who ends up getting swept up in a war purely because he went to save his friend, only to inadvertently create a power vacuum that allowed an ambitious, manipulative cult to exploit and control the entire continent. The decision to kill off most of the characters from the first generation, and then leave it to the children 15 years later to pick up the pieces, I'd say, is downright bold for video game writing. Most games get lauded as emotional and heart-wrenching if they kill off ONE main character, let-alone virtually all of them. The framing to the story helps, a lot, too. First gen has some dark moments, like Eldigan's beheading, but by and large, gen 1 is presented as a romantic(In both meanings of the word), heroic adventure, only for it to turn into a great tragedy just as it seems like the heroes are going to get recognition for their efforts. And to top things off, Leif gets probably the most well-developed and compelling personal story in the whole franchise with Thracia 776. That whole game can be summed up as "Leif overcomes his insecurities and personality flaws and saves the day", while still staying true to the tone and atmosphere of Genealogy. He's still going city to city, trying to stop an evil cult from mass murdering children while liberating his country. It's also neat to get people like Sleuf and Sara who were connected to the Lopto Cult, showing us, for the first time, a more human side to the "Evil mage people" that have been so common in FE since FE1. Hell, some FEs still struggle to this day to do this(*coughcoughtheGrimlealcoughcough*). If I were to tier them: Great tier - Jugdral Good tier - Tellius Decent tier - Elibe, Archanea, Valentia Bad tier - Awakening, Sacred Stones Garbage tier - Conquest Burn-it-and-forget-it tier - Revelation and Birthright

FE4: For Genealogy, I could see adding a handful of female characters in Gen 1. Say 2 or 3. This would lead to 4-6 new children in gen 2, and 4-6 new subs. I also believe Galzus should show up at some point in gen 1, since he's Odo royalty and a notorious fighter across the land. Maybe he shows up here and there as a neutral until(Or hostile since Isacchian royalty like Ayra, Shanah and Chulainn are in the party), and we see late into gen 1 the moment where he loses Mareeta. While they aren't "Brand new", there are a handful of T776 characters who should REALLY show up in gen 2 of Genealogy, too. Namely: Eyvel/Briggid, Mareeta(Eyvel's adopted daughter), Saias(Alvis' son) and Sara(Manfroy's granddaughter). Maybe Fergus, too, if they decide to go with the idea that he's Beowulf's son. Galzus could maybe show up in the final chapter as a proper Gotoh archetype to help kill Manfroy. FE5: Thracia's probably fine as is. It already had a very large cast, so I'd prefer they just flesh out what's already there. FE6: I could see them adding a child of Lyn into Binding Blade, and maybe some more characters who are children of prominent FE7 characters(Or they could just add connections). They could probably add a child of Dorcas and Natalie. After this I have a hard time figuring what decent additions there could be.

If you want a good laugh, compare the XIII reviews to the XIII-2 reviews. XIII-2 didn't come out long after XIII, it scored a fair bit lower on average, and most XIII-2 reviews mention XIII-2 being a better game than the original in pretty much every way(To be fair, it is. It's still not a very good game.) Everyone who reviewed XIII and then went on to review XIII-2 pretty much admitted "Yeah, that 9/10 we gave XIII? It actually wasn't that good. Whoops." Can't say much on XV since I haven't played it. I decided to wait for the PC version, but from what I gather, it has one major thing over XIII: The characters you follow for 50 hours are likable and they have good chemistry. The plot is still a mess, and the gameplay is even more shallow(Again, from hearsay), but it won't be aggravating any time anyone opens their mouths. The game gives a dumb, arbitrary time limit for a framing device. Basically, these big dumb gods called Fal'cie that nobody comprehends mark random people as L'cie. L'cie have to complete a task, called a "Focus", given by the Fal'cie within an arbitrary time limit, or else they become big crystal zombies. The dumb part comes in that the Fal'cie have no real way of communicating with L'cie, so for a good chunk of the game, the main characters, who all get marked as L'cie, have NO WAY OF KNOWING how to complete their Focus. So this gives a one-two whammy that just makes the plot really hard to be engaged in: A) The characters bumble around, and split up with different ideas on how to complete(Or not) their Focus. Hope and Lightning, the two angsty members, decide to destroy Cocoon, the only place Humanity knows they can live. Sazh and Vanille decide to do nothing, Sazh just wants to find his son. Snow meets up with Fang, and they decide they should beat up the Fal'cie. Eventually they all meet up again, and they still don't really have an idea of what to do until late into the game. B) Because of there's an arbitrary time limit, the characters rarely stop to talk to each other about what the fuck is going on. So these characters have no idea what they have to do, but they have to do it fast. It's a frustrating story to sit through once you let it digest once. The first time, there's still an air of mystery, and you keep playing hoping somebody explains something, but nobody does. Also, the game is really dumb with what the "Focus" is. Sarah, the character that kicks off the plot, I think just has to go to one of the Fal'Cie, and this completes her focus? Or something? Then you get Dajh, Sazh's son, who was taken from his dad for being marked as an L'cie, but Dajh's Focus was to meet up with his dad? Why? I don't know. Outside of Barthandelus, the Fal'Cie are totally incomprehensible and they never try to explain why they're so random, even in the pages of codex. If they did explain it, then I missed it, and it's still dumb.

It's my first time playing a Warriors game in a looooong time, but action games are in my wheelhouse. Surprisingly a lot of skills you pick up playing games like DMC and Ninja Gaiden translate to Warriors. True, emphasizing stats may end up making certain characters worse, but this is also true for Fire Emblem proper. But you can probably count the units that are actually flat-out unusable on one hand or two hands, depending on the work you want to put in. I don't think a unit building their gauges faster(Say this is what Speed does) would be less viable than a unit who crits more(Skill).

I rarely get hit by enemy commanders, which are typically the only ones that deal any sort of noticeable damage. Unless it's a random archer that hits a flier, I can't say I notice getting hit often. I say this having beaten the game and clearing one of the history maps outside of the extra challenges that pop up when you clear that story. I do agree. I feel like the resources would be better spent at making movesets for classes, rather than try to give each individual character movesets. That should probably be saved for Lord characters, though even that's not how it turned out in FEW1, since Celica shares her moveset with Marth. And I think Lucina with Chrom. I still think they could make stats more apparent.

The solution here is to not have people support with an unrealistic amount of people. Would Gatrie need to support with anyone besides Astrid, Shinon and maybe Lyre? No, so don't have him support with Volug or something like you'd see in Fates or Awakening, where the roster isn't much smaller than RD's, yet everyone has a dozen support chains. Fates actually has more regular characters(Going off Revelations) than RD does, where RD gives you less than 60 units before the final chapter, where I'd expect supports to be nonexistant. Revelations has about 65 regular characters with tons of support chains.

One thing this reminds me of is Dragon Quest Heroes. The first was kind of a mash-up of traditional Warriors gameplay, with tower defense(For some reason). The sequel went full JRPG with how it was structured, though, and felt a lot truer to its roots than DQH1. So if the game were to be improved, I honestly wouldn't mind there being more of an emphasis on stats(As they're basically meaningless in FEW), with a lot of units being given a handful of "generic movesets", and their main point of differentiation being their stat distribution. Kind of like actual Fire Emblem. Like, say we get Dorcas and Bartre for FEW2. They'd share most of their moveset(Maybe some unique specials), but Dorcas would hit harder and get more crits due to his higher strength and skill, and Bartre could get around or build his gauges faster or something with his speed. Maybe they'd get different skills, too. They'd technically play very similarly, but also pretty differently. This is kind of a pipe dream, though, since some stats, like defense, would be pretty pointless, since it's so rare to actually get hit in these games. And it'd be unrealistic to expect a ton of characters, since while they'd save costs on developing new movesets, modeling and VA costs would likely outweigh what they'd save. Anyway, I do hope they come up with a way to introduce more new characters than just lords in FEW2, assuming we get it.

Nah, Lester must have picked up that slicked-back greaser hair from someone. If he had a massive pomp I'd agree.

Assuming you have more than one copy on hand, and the means to play them, a race could probably be fun.