Slumber

In all honesty I'd like it if it turned out that Loptyr was the one who had possessive, romantic feelings about Ishtar. It'd certainly add to his character, rather than amplifying negative aspects of Julius'. It'd also make you think a lot about how spending so much time tethered to humans might be changing Loptyr.

Two of the most consistent problems with Archers in the franchise is that the don't have viable close range options, and they simply don't hit hard enough most of the time. Warriors generally address both problems, and there are strong cases for units like Geitz to be the best bow users in the game. I don't think Archers are the worst class in the series, but even further, I can't really see them being better than Fighters/Warriors, outside of extreme cases like RD where Rolf and Shinon are insanely good, while Boyd and Nolan are just pretty good. There are fringe cases like T776 where your two Fighters(I'd argue that Orsin's mere existence keeps Fighters well out of the "Worst class" running) promote to Heroes instead of Warriors, and Bandits promote to Warriors, or Gaiden where playable Fighters aren't a thing(Alm doesn't count) and the Archer line is much stronger than usual, but on the whole, even if Fighters/Warriors don't make the best Fighters/Warriors, I'd certainly say they're better Archers/Snipers than Archers and Snipers. Even given a general rundown, I can find far more standout Fighters/Warriors than I can of Archers or Knights. FE1/3/11/12: Barst is insanely good in all of his appearances. FE5: Orsin might be the single best unit in the franchise, and Halvan's no slouch, either. On the Warrior side, Dagdar's a solid Jeigan. FE7: Geitz is probably the best Bow user in the game. FE9: Boyd is very good. FE10: Nolan is probably the overall most consistently good member of the DB, and Boyd is once again very good. FE4 has a poor showing, since there's only one Fighter, he's not phenomenal, and he's not mounted. FE6 has no good Fighters or Warriors, but there are several classes where this is the case in this game(Knights and Archers to name a few). FE8 has Ross, but Ross is way better as a Berserker. Awakening and Fates have solid showings, but not remarkable. Vaike, Basilio, Arthur and Charlotte aren't taking home many medals, but they're not stuck just getting participation trophies, either(Maybe Arthur is).

That'd make it tricky explaining Diarmuid and Fergus. Holyn could be cut, but I'd rather him not get cut. It'd seem weird for a member of the Isaach royal family to just vanish, even if he isn't part of the main family like Ayra and doesn't play into the story at all.

I have never gotten a good Erk. I've been playing FE7 fairly often for 15 goddamn years now, and I don't think I've ever seen him get above 15 in any stat by endgame.

I'm going to argue on a technicality that Lucina's not a proper "Lord", and therefore it's okay that I overlooked her. She doesn't cause a game over when she dies and she isn't a central character. She's more like a Lachesis or FE4 Gen 2 Leif.

They can be fine, depending on how blurry the lines between "normal" and "corrupted/possessed" are. Julius I tend to like a bit because his depictions in FE4 and 5 make it really hard to tell how far gone he is at times. Despite being told that he's been completely taken over by Loptyr, scenes between him and Ishtar make it hard to tell at times. He acts like a hyper possessive boyfriend more than an evil dragon that wants to live forever subjugating humanity. Throughout the game, you also get everyone who loves Julius telling you to put him out of his misery. Ishtar, Arvis, Julia... The former two especially, as they die so that you can put an end to Loptyr using Julius' body as a puppet. Lyon I'm not huge on simply because the lines between "This is Lyon struggling" and "This is straight up Satan controlling his body" are super obvious. His backstory and story with the twins is sad and whatever, but his actual presence in the game does very little for me. He's alright. Nergal's kinda similar. I like his back story a bit more, as I find "Man uses dark magic and loses himself in order to save/see his loved ones" more compelling than "Man is unwittingly possessed by evil rock", even if both are pretty cliche. He sucks in the main game too, though. He should be able to obliterate EHL pretty much from the moment he knows they exist, but he just... Doesn't. Ashnard I'm also kind of whatever on. I don't get anything out of him, and him being controlled by lingering madness barely even effects the story. He's a generic conquerer villain with or without that tidbit thrown into his story. The Anankos controlled villains in Fates are the worst. They can be fine, it's all just dependent on how it's propped up. Blurry lines=Good, IMO. Julius pulls it off the best, IMO. I've said it a lot in terms of how writing should be handled in this series, but "More like Jugdral" continues to be my argument.

I voted Leif because that's his whole thing, but I don't consider Lucina a "true Lord" and I never bother to look for her. But her backstory is the worst.

As a whole gameplay-wise, Knights/Armors. They have problems more consistently than any other class I can think of. FE2 - Hit with the movement stick, and don't offer anything substantial compared to the other classlines. FE4 - Movement stick. FE5 - Every class has the same stats. All Armor provides is another effective weakness to watch out for. FE6 - Just a bunch of bad Knights. FE13 - Don't really offer anything substantial and can effectively be ignored. They're the worst, or among the worst, classes in each of these games. This is like half the series here. Even when they're not the worst, they still tend to be a huge mixed bag, like in Tellius where you're either Gatrie or you're not. Aesthetically, Fighters are the worst. FE1-4 has them doing this stupid crabwalk, and they look like Dragon Quest thugs, only in a much less cartoonish and light-hearted world. FE5-10 hit a decent aesthetic with them, then they divebombed right back into "Holy fuck this is the worst thing ever" with Awakening's... bone bikini. Fates wasn't much better, but at least they were wearing actual clothing, even if it still looked like bondage gear on anyone who wasn't Arthur.

I find it hard to believe that Nah of all people would be hit by degeneration. If Bantu, who was already an insanely old dragon during Marth's time wasn't only fine then, but thousands of years later, as mentioned by Nowi, I don't see how a kid half-dragon would be degenerating. Seems like dragon stones more or less halt completely. Which would likely mean that Mila and Duma never sealed their powers. As mentioned, both of them constantly exerting physical influence across the continent is likely meant to imply that they're always using their full powers. Which really only leads to me wondering "What the hell, Naga". You were paranoid about even setting foot on Jugdral or letting Holsety stay there because you didn't want to sully human land that had remained largely untouched by dragonkind, and the second most powerful clan of dragons was more or less exterminated in a war over dragons sealing their powers away. You lead the side that was saying "let's seal our powers away to stop degeneration and so we can live peacefully with humans". Why the hell did Duma and Mila just get to hang out as full dragons all the time, clearly degenerating for God knows how long, when they're RIGHT next door to the continent where you and your dragon buddies like to hang out? Did Naga never take two seconds to go deal with these ticking timebombs beyond lending a second Falchion? It seems directly contradictory to how Naga acted in Jugdral. "A potential dark dragon is using humans to commit atrocities. Let's lend our blood so these humans can fight back and channel our powers without us needing to be there, because we can't drag another civilization into our affairs." To "Two divine dragons are full-on degenerating. Here's my tooth, hopefully somebody who can use it will stop by. If not... Well, sucks to be anyone on that hunk of land! Later! There's another dark dragon problem happening in my neck of the woods, I can't be bothered to stop two of my clan, who are far and away the most powerful dragon clan, from wrecking havoc."

I imagine that's how I'll die, anyway.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"

You gotta get yourself some Mtn Dew Gamer Fuel, Doritos, Gunnar Optics, and a DXRacer chair if you really want to game.

Ugh. See, Gaius is the absolute worst to me. He might not outright mention candy at every opportunity, but every single conversation he has is geared towards how many candy puns he can cram in a sentence. The guy basically has nothing going on for him when he isn't directly talking about candy, which makes him even worse than the gimmick characters who just bring up their gimmick at every opportunity. Because when HE'S not doing that, he basically can only contribute puns to any conversation, which is just the worst, and I hope whoever wrote his dialog his dialog got fired.

I've made the comparison before, but compare Canas to Miriel. Canas is more or less as you described. He's a bookworm who loves to read, and the writers of FE7 used as a way to get him to talk to certain characters. "Brawns vs brains" with Bartre, two nerds fanboying over each other with Pent, bonding with this illiterate mage only to learn that she's his niece, or using his knowledge to worldbuild with Renault... These all feel like there's meat to these conversations, and the only time it ever boils down to "Oh, books books books" is with Vaida, which is far and away Canas' worst support chain. Then you get to Miriel, who is dozens and dozens of support convo that boil down to "Oh, books books science books science books books." She never/rarely uses her gimmick to ever build her character or explain anything about the world they live in. Her and Ricken touch a bit on the nature of magic, but as far as I recall, that's the MOST we ever get out of Miriel. While Canas provides meat, Miriel provides only fluff and empty calories. And Miriel's not even the worst when it comes to one-note gimmick characters out of the recent games. But it she still feels like a character centered around a single thing and never deviates in any meaningful way. If they can do character gimmicks like Canas, which is in-line with how characters used to be handled, I'd be fine. But Awakening was gimmick hell and Fates had its own issues.

Eureka hurts.

That was 25 years ago.

I actually agree. However, there are absolutely egregious examples that drag Fates down to possibly worse than Awakening's level. They gave the characters more to work with, but the character writing is absolutely atrocious at times. Namely Peri. It seems like for every solid, less gimmicky-character(Say the aforementioned Nyx), you got an absolutely despicable character like Peri. But yes, there are absolutely less characters that are just "I like this one thing. This one thing is all I'll talk about" compared to Awakening. Characters were given more dimensions, and even at their worst, I have a hard time thinking of anyone as bad as Gaius or Vaike in that regard. There were still too many examples of characters falling back on character quirks as a crutch for my liking.

No. For me, it's because Olivia's a character... Well, scratch that. It makes no sense for her character to wear skimpy clothes... Olivia's a profession where it makes sense to wear skimpier clothing. She's a fragile, agile dancer, and she's the one class that has always had character designs(Barring Ninian, Nils, Elphin and the Herons) with skimpier attire. And, despite wearing less clothes, her, uh, womanly charm isn't constantly shoved in your face. If it wasn't for official art and in-game models(Which even then, like half of the in-game models in Fates/Awakening have people hardly wearing anything), you probably wouldn't assume that Olivia is running around in her underwear with some miscellaneous rags. Tharja and Camilla don't get this. It makes no sense for them to wear what they wear. Their classes are historically two of the most covered up classes, being surpassed by only Knights. And to make matters worse, Dark Mages have become "Tanks that cast magic" and Dragon Riders have become "Tanks that fly", so their designs make no sense with the evolution of their classes. AND their fanservicey designs are CONSTANTLY shoved in your face. And possibly the most shameless bit, Tharja and Camilla exist purely to stroke the player's ego, Olivia doesn't. There's a lot to be said about Tharja and Camilla wearing battle bikinis in a series that typically didn't have them when every other line out of them is "Oh xxx I love you unconditionally no matter what and treat everyone else with uncalled for hostility."

I like the speed and pace of the gameplay. Going back to older titles, I almost ALWAYS turn off animations because as nice as they are to look at, I've seen them hundreds of times, and I don't need to see them hundreds more. Fast-forward and skip options help immensely. I can still get the thrill/dread of a critical hit or a skill going off as it happens. Tiny little quality of life things have fixed a lot of pacing issues like this. I consider Gaiden pretty much an unplayable mess. SoV, despite being faithful to a detrimental degree at times, is VASTLY superior, to where I'd say it is overall probably my favorite of the 3DS games, even compared to stuff like Conquest, which I'd put near the top of the franchise as far as moment-to-moment gameplay goes(Conquest gets dragged down by what happens between those moments, but that's a different topic). So yeah, I guess I'd just say that the progression of raw playability has been my favorite things as far as newer titles goes.

It's a guarantee. Awakening was Nintendo's first major push unto DLC, and Fire Emblem's stayed as a very DLC heavy series. That said, I really, really, really hope they change up their DLC formula. This "Weapon grinding map, gold grinding map, EXP grinding map" with a handful of random challenge maps and about 3 actual story related, but still entirely divorced from the main game thrown in is some of the laziest DLC I've ever seen. The only thing that would be lazier would be DLC that just gave you weapons, gold and EXP with no maps... Which I wouldn't put past ANY game developers, let alone IS and Nintendo. None of the FE DLC except maybe the Future Past stuff has felt like it had any substance.

IS sold one game in three separate packages, no way they'd sell two as one.

Dragon Ball is 35 years old, and Love Hina is some thing like 25. People who grew up with those shows aren't just NOW getting into the industry. And if they are, they're just as likely to pop up as people who watched Berserk, Jojo, Evangelion, Fist of the North Star, and many, many other highly influential/prominent series that were popular around the same periods of time as DB and LH. The truth of the matter is probably a lot more cynical than people simply wearing their influences on their sleeves. When Awakening was a last-ditch effort to keep the series afloat, at some point in the development, there was probably a deliberate strategy to appeal to as many people as possible, despite the constant "Nonono, we were only thinking of the fans" claims from IS. When Awakening made boatloads of money, the development from the get-go with Fates likely devolved from "Appeal to the broadest crowd possible" to "Appeal to the absolute lowest common denominator". Which is how, DESPITE HIRING A WELL RESPECTED MANGA AUTHOR TO WRITE FOR THE GAME, the script was butchered, hacked to pieces, and feels more like it was written by a horny 13 year old who just binge-watched Sword Art Online. Or rather, it looks and feels like it was written by a bunch of suits who desperately wanted to appeal to horny 13 year old who just binge watched SAO. I don't even know how to describe the further devolution of Heroes. It's like they now want to go for that horny 13 year old who just binge watched SAO's one friend that they keep around purely so nobody can say that they don't have friends.

... And? Shows like EMS and MHA have existed for as long as FE has. Longer, actually. But it never felt like FE was directly inspired by that stuff. Ike went around fighting for his friends when One Piece and Naruto were at their peaks, but it never felt like PoR or RD were directly inspired by that stuff. Anime as a whole has changed a lot less over the last 30 years than FE has.

More negative than positive. The things I like about the franchise are being overshadowed by things I don't like, which are either becoming more exaggerated or are new entirely. Things like Avatars, S rank supports, marriage, meta-gaming, and children are now main selling points of the franchise rather than bullet points and one-off features. I didn't really care about any of these things when they were first introduced, and it's only gotten worse each time they've shown up. Character gimmicks have gotten completely out of hand, and the "Hahaha so whacky and anime" style of writing leaves me wanting to slit my wrists rather than read the text in Fates or Awakening. There being like a billion support conversations only makes it worse. And gameplay wise, as good as Conquest was, it was 1/3 of Fates. It feels like for every 1 step forward, there are about 2 back. I'll probably always give FE a chance, but Awakening and Fates have damaged the series in my eyes. Probably half the reason I'm not frothing at the mouth for FE Switch info is because deep down, I'm afraid it'll keep doubling down on things I don't like. So yeah. It might end up that my hope for the franchise might be localized to remakes.

17. Incest, while possibly leading to the Anti-Christ, can also lead to the Anti-Anti-Christ. 18. Dancing is more refreshing than magic that can heal fatal wounds.