Altrosa

Fates is screwed it up on a bunch of sides. Niles and Rhajat didn't exactly set a high standard, Soleil's habits come off like a confused lesbian, and Nina is that girl that loves yaoi for all the wrong reasons. But they got it started. Players had the option. I feel like saying Leon's better isn't offering much, but Leon was a step in the right direction on how to make good, inoffensive representation, despite him being in love with Valbar being his whole character. Either way, we're never gonna stop real life Nina's from being disgusting about characters in fandom whether the characters are confirmed LGBT+ or not.

Every new character to SoV suffers from the same issues of gorgeous designs and VA work, but wobbly writing. Half the old cast is written all over the place, too, but I feel Berkut and Rinea suffer the most from being so shoehorned in. Especially the plot-device called Rinea. I don't hate Faye, I just feel grossly sorry for her. She just never understood she didn't have a chance with Alm, and it just stewed in her for her whole life, making her come off as... that, with Alm never connecting the dots. Her supports with Alm are more about how badly she's handling the war despite her outward attitude. She kept having to rely on the dream she'd live happily with Alm after all the bloodshed to keep on going (and that also meant protecting Alm at all costs). Her initial dismissal of Silque, lack of other supports, and admittance in her A-support with Alm that she can't let go of the dream lead me to think that. I guess I'm overanalyzing it, but I just found she felt different than my expectations after beginning to play SoV. Faye exists for the singular purpose of giving Alm a female villager, but Lord. Did they bork up by making her a bad Catria archetype. She pushes into Camilla range, really. Meh. Either way, it's badly written whether you see Faye as a gross character or a damaged one since she was never allowed to bounce off of enough other characters to be much beyond "everything I do is for Alm because I love him so much." I mean, Leon is right there with the same kind of love for and drive to be near Valbar, with the key difference being Leon could move on, so everything about his manner and dialogue reflect that. But, otherwise, if we are basing our dislike on unit utility, I can't wait to drop the "wtf is accuracy" archer, Python. Why....

I would rather just get totally new FE titles or see other classic FE games remade. (I really want to play Genealogy now...) But, if we got an SoV2, I would absolutely play it. They could even fix these garbage maps. Nintendo is letting the 3DS go out gracefully, but it's had it's run. No one developes for the 3D or utilizes many of it's quirky tech options as most gamers want a more straightforward experience. (How many recent games have come out that use play coins or the cameras?) That, and many recent games run like hot garbage on older models. The Switch is a natural progression on that front. Most devs are content jumping to it now that it's a proven success and has nearly the same portability of the 3DS, but with power. Ultra Sun and Moon are pretty much it's final major franchise titles, and those games fall into the "runs like hot garbage on older models" category of newer 3DS titles.

Remakes don't diminish the value of originals. If anything, SoV makes me value Gaiden more as we can see how far we've come and compare how both pushed their home console tech in the context of their release. But, that's the point of remakes, showing off tech and design growth and making a game more accessible. So, no, not at all.

I know Corrin soured some people for the mary-sue qualities, but Corrin was an complete idiot in so many scenarios, and Corrin being the lord with the exclusive sworx defeats the purpose of the avatar, or "my unit," system. I love Corrin's default design and the actual canon jobs, but that damn Yato grossly limited what I could do to make Corrin feel like my personal choice of unit. My main Conquest run had a Dark Flyer Corrin, but I had to hold onto the Yato to retain stat buffers despite not equipping it. It was a weird limitation that was absent before. Robin, though, I could build from the ground up into literally anything but the single, exclusive Lord job. I loved that! So, I vote yes to avatar, but only if the character is more of a Robin than a Corrin. As for S-ranks, yes, I want them back. But, I don't want children. I love the pair-up mechanics and would rather S-ranking be more about pairing up units you use and like verses the eugenics game played in Awakening and Fates. We wouldn't see half the army be replaced once kids got recruited, either. I would rather the Paladin carting around my cleric S-rank together, than feeling obligated to pair them off with units I never touch just so their kids have better growths. Bad.

SoV has spoiled me with this, but I want units to retain their color scheme in all of their accessible classes. Even if we have some limitations with this, I'm just sick of half my army being blue. Maybe only 10 color schemes in total that character models grab based on the dominant color in their base design. If we have an avatar, we can choose a favorite color as part of the building process. Instead of static portraits, we could have the 3D model emote during scenes. The best example I can give of this is Rune Factory: Tides of Destiny, which uses a nigh identical dialogue format as FE has. The Switch is HD, so it can handle this fine, plus it would show any class changes if you do decide to make a unit run a non-cannon job for skills or better stat use. Secondly, if we lose static portraits, let the detailed sprites return to show characters within menus. (I'm indifferent on sprites, TBH. I just think people would really miss them.) I don't want blood. Gore doesn't give weight to anything if it's everywhere. Lethality's censored blood hits so much harder because gore is non-existent otherwise. Same with SoV's death mentioned, up there. It sends a bigger hint that this character is royally screwed because this injury is bad enough for it to bleed. Coming off of that, crits and skills need to have all the punch they can get. They need to shock the player and feel great when you unleash one on an enemy. I feel the way SoV drags crits out verses Fates's crit's brevity hurts the emotional impact. The lightning bolt-flash-quote-attack-death is great, just don't sit on one of these for more than second. I also really like the idea that different kingdoms that use the same classes showing aesthetic differences based upon the background of the unit. Like, the snowy kingdom has more insulated looking armor. I like the generic enemies being a bit randomized in their appearance, too. But mostly. Please, IS, stop it with the mass model clipping. Hair, loose clothing, and weapons should not pass through the limbs, heads, and torsos of the main model while in motion. It looks terrible, and the Switch has the power to handle the physics required to prevent it. Animate as needed. Please. That's all I can really think of right now.

Takumi and Leo didn't hate Corrin; they envied Corrin. Dracul's curiously named "vassel" class would make more sense if Dracul was thrust into a servant position by the true heir younger sibling. Dracul is likely seen as a threat to their status as furture ruler. Dracul's status as a "bastard" reflects badly on the royal family either way. I'm curious if we're going to see another kind of f!Robin/Chrom or even an m!Robin/Lucina type of situation with f!Dracul/Alain. Awakening had entire scenes play out differently if you had these pairs, and while not a huge difference, it encouraged some replaying to see the variation first hand.

The only way this would work is if the sexuality is just never acknowledged. No, "I was gay until I met Dracul." Just, "I love Dracul." I mean, that's at least a little less of a red flag, but the above kind of dialogue is why Soleil reads as a lesbian to so many people, despite being straight by the fact she only S-supports males. Anyway, I do like that we don't need to play the eugenics game here, and can instead support units we actually use or the ones with good dialogues without potentially screwing up another unit's growths. I can ship my hypothetical Odin and Kagero all day long without ruining Ophelia's magic.

I like the Awakening branches, but the fact that both Dark Flyer and Falcon Knight were tied to characters and individually statted with bad to meh magic growths hurt the jobs. I set up Maribelle as a Dark Flier in my main Awakening file as her growths were good enough to support it properly. I feel like the Wyverns could sub swords and lances with base axes. Having Malig Knight and Dark Flyer both in one game feels a bit redundant. Maybe instead of Dark Flyer, it works like the Hoshido branches and you gain a bow on one option, whereas wyvern riders retain the malig knight option. I would prefer Pegusi as the magical flyers and wyverns as the physical flyers, or vice-versa, though, keeping it a bit cleaner and allowing each a niche without overstepping other class's utilities.

This is contradictory. I don't have issue if a few characters are bi, pan, and gay, as a Bi person, I desperately want that, but it feels pretty sketchy to think I can get an exclusively gay unit to marry my female Dracul. UNLESS the second half of the statement is more about us having more instances of units that only marry the avatar, like Priam or Scarlet.

I know that kind of masochistic permadeath exists on some MMO servers, where if you die you can't login as that avatar anymore. But, that only works in special settings and tends to be for guildies to work in a more high stakes environment. It's pointless in a singleplayer game. That said, I think dropping casual mode would be a bad idea, even with the turnwheel. Turnwheel should usurp Pheonix mode. Really, all casual mode does is prevent a billion restarts and force more mid-chapter grinding. Otherwise, you end up with a few over powered units verses a few units... in total. I think some old-school fans underestimate how many 3DS newbies wouldn't pick up the series anymore if permadeath was enforced again. Even if the game was easy otherwise.

Good catch, and wow, that changes so much of the narrative possibility, but that almost certainly spoils that Samael is guaranteed to be our big bad final boss. IS is starting to get stuck on that.

The more this pulls from Christianity, to more leary I become of it, despite liking most concepts here. Japan likes using a Catholicism expy as a villianous society from it's unfortunate history of rampant corruption, so much so it's a cliché. So which one is the Jesus? Alain or Dracul? The god is named Samuel. Will the Humans be against homosexual relationships despite S-ranking in Fates giving the option and Leon in Echoes being openly gay? Is said Samuel church bad or misguided? Who do the Kibaire worship? If they opt for this kind of direction, we'll see an M rating or a crap ton of censorship. And neither bode well! Honestly, the only time I've seen this same "the church did it" storyline done well was FFXIV Heavensward, and that was mostly down to the time it took to explore every faction and the aftermath in said factions. Everyone was wrong to an extent, and we had to remove the top brass refusing to change for the sake of peace on both sides. In the end, we saw both societies join together to clean house and right the wrongs of history without discarding their identities to do so. That's rarely done.

A grounded, human verses human or idealogy verses idealogy conflict would be awesome. I feel like SoV/Gaiden and Fates had underlying potential to have stories like that, but both messed this up by making one side so clearly "good." Imagine how vastly different Conquest would've been if Garon was happy Corrin returned to Nohr and didn't want to mentally torture them at every turn while the isolationist Hoshido struggled to get Corrin back over and over? If Duma hadn't lost his mind and instead actively restarted the war against sister to rescue his dying people, giving them such terrible power out of necessity while Mila struggled to defend her people after giving them generations of comfort and refusing to go to such extremes as Duma? I want stuff like that! I also want the option to choose a side again, or perhaps have a seperate lord for each route. Villains with understandable motivations make for better stories.

Phew, haven't been in Serenes a while. I'm playing in Echoes now, and there is a lot I don't like, but a few things I love. -Turnwheel system is a great addition, and so much better than Phoenix mode. -Villages -Characters retaining their color scheme and other small details in every available job to them. -Always having a weapon equipped. -Archers having the huge range. -Dungeons, great for grinding and to break up the content, but the maps used were so boring. That's it. Echoes is really weird and dated, but the presentation is so high, and the details on that front are far more welcome than the gameplay quirks. The map designs are terrible. The magic costing HP only really works in this game. The terrain bonuses are too OP. The Shrine system makes character growth too much of a chore. The supports here are laughably bad. Bonus EXP makes grinding to easy. Alm is scarily overpowered.

I know people get angry when the ethics and legality of leaked content comes into play, but I'm with OP. While piracy for FE may not be a major chunk of the community, it still robs money from IS, which is never a good thing to the overall franchise. Take this leak, and consider the pace that fans translated the JP version of Fates with an easy to apply patch. I still see fans opting for the fan patched version over the official one, so we really can't gauge how this will affect the game in the long run. But, Nintendo's been bricking hacked consoles since the Wii was first cracked, and it is usually when people need internet access on a game or the console forces an update that Nintendo gives hackers and their consoles the big ol' screw you, but that's because hackers out themselves that way. So, there is pretty strong deterrent to avoid hacking, particularly after how swift and merciless Nintendo was to the players with pirated Pokémon. And, while I was very hyped for Echoes, the more I hear and see.... The less interested I am. Gaiden, either. IS hyped this game as a major expansion to Gaiden, fleshing out the barebones story, adding more characters while expanding and developing them all, and covering everything with a damn fine coat of paint. Despite that, it still feels like a much smaller game than Awakening was, and lacks so much of the replay value I got out of Awakening and Fates with the shunted support system and class growth system giving no bonus to trying alternate routes. It's getting harder to justify paying full-price for it now that I know more about it. :/

Wow, Treehouse wasn't given this game? That might be for the best considering some psychopaths would avoid the game after their localization job on Fates got so much hate. And, hold up, I thought Alm did promote into a Dread Fighter much like Celica does to Princess. Am I wrong?

I agree with that, too. That seems to be the one thing everyone can agree on is the desire for some of supports in SoV.

I distinctly recall Anna noting in one of her My Room quotes about being curious of the fact that there are only legends about Dragons in the world of Fates. And Anankos WAS a first dragon. That was crux of his whole deal. His insanity was due to him being unimaginably old, but he refused to just die out since he just loved the Vallite people so much. He was the proginator of the country, afterall.

No worries. That is a good point, though, but it was all that fanservice that rubbed players wrong. Fates Conquest had the gameplay, but covered it in content that leaves a bad taste in some fans mouths. Birthright waa accessible, but same problem. Revelation attempted to be happy medium, but is a mess storywise. Fates attempting to please everyone hurt the game's overall quality. I'd rather IS just make the best version of Gaiden they can by implementing all the good ideas they've accrued since then verses adding way too much superfluous fanservice, again.

Even as someone whom freely abused Pheonix Mode, I won't miss it. It really does make Fates degrade into a press to win button, and I understand it was included to aid new fans adjust to Conquest's higher difficulty, it was simply too much. The Mila's Device thing seems to be a better alternative. That said, Fates was supposed to be the game that bridged fans new and old, and if it couldn't, despite giving all the characters, multiple routes, and difficulties, I really doubt SoV can. To go back a bit, I always assumed the level of vitriol that surrounded Fates localization came down to the fact the fan-made English patch, which was as much a direct translation of the JP scripts as possible, was up and out months before the official Treehouse translation, with the crew behind it making it as accessible as possible. So, seeing all these inexplicable changes made many players angry, as if Treehouse somehow tainted the game as a "pure" translation was already available. Shoot, Soleil was such a hot topic, Treehouse released their entire Corrin/Soleil support script weeks early to calm people down. Honestly, I feel like people really don't know the difference between localization and translation. And, comparing the FE fanbase to Sonic's is an outright disservice. FE has fandom vitriol, but Sonic has a fandom for it's fandom vitriol. Shoot, one day after Forces was announced and many major gaming jounalists were decrying it for basically existing. It's clickbaity nonsense that no other franchise deals with, just begging fans to get riled up and defensive on their sites, giving haters content to trash, making this disgusting cycle of nonsense that's been going for nigh on a decade now with gaming sites cashing out (and it's partly Sega's fault.) But that's a discussion for another day. Sonic '06 is eleven years old.

Sp, it's more like Alm plays a bit dirtier than other lords, and Celica just wants to be a pacifist?

Mmmmmm.... Honestly, if this is what they were intending, we'd see flashes of clarity, or other moments of the fantasy breaking. Like, a maid performing a nursing task that seems a tad too detailed to just be a maid. Even the Squall is Dead theory notes that kind of thing in that he just deteriotes in his final moments, post time compression and boss, since he can't keep the illusion going, because he's, you know, dying. Although, I've not put much stock in that theory, despite being an interesting take on a game I enjoy, since much of the wild fantasy stuff WAS in disc one, so it always felt like you were just being more entrenched into it as the powers that be abused magic and child soldiers. At least it feels more intentional than Squall going insane and trying to give himself a happy, power fantasy in his dying moments. Also, were Gunther and Lilith actually retainers? I mean, Lilith worked the stables and Gunther was Corrin's trainer. Silas most certainly isn't one, and Kaze only becomes one under specific circumstances. So, that's Jacob and the twins.

Actually, I think it would be cool if Berkut is sort of a Shura type scenario as was done in Conquest. You can give him a second chance and recruit him, or execute him for his crimes. Also, I think Hidari is a dude.

Oooh. Yeah, I was more or less trying to, I guess, extrapolate the interpretations I've gathered. Most summaries on Alm's character essentially make him a viking of a warrior, and completely justified to be the OG Dread Fighter, despite being this unassuming young man by appearance. Although, it could be more those explanations giving Celica more credit in that she tones him down to teach him a better path. So, yeah, I'm wrong, lol.