Seazas

Listen Jotari, just listen for a second. I don't care if you don't like Alm, that doesn't matter to me anymore. Just STOP being apart of the small few that push a narrative of Gaiden Alm being this different extremely flawed guy. I'm sick of that crclejerk that's been going on for YEARS and it's another case of blaming Echoes for something it isn't at fault by. Kaga always gave Alm just about everything with Celica not getting the same treatment, Alm always had a rational super kind personality. That rebellious spirit you mentioned is nice as a concept, it never existed in Gaiden though. This version of Alm you prefer just doesn't exist, come on man. Awakening never cared for Gaiden, it didn't bother to dig into what it tried to do nor was it overly fond of the game. It didn't even acknowledge Alm and Celica's legacy properly and never answered where the Valentian Falchion went. Awakening's depiction of Alm is just wrong.

Alright then, hopefully the edit is better for you. Couldn't help but assume a little as the situation was gradually turning to Jotari making opinionated claims with some of the discussion getting geared toward that.

I didn't know what you were aiming for other than supporting a potential point that Awakening furthered an idea of Alm that never existed. Especially when you had the timing of another disagreement between me and Jotari. I edited the post, is that better?

What you're complaining about is just completely wrong in this case. The fact that you said that I didn't "challenge your claims" is absurd, you're complaining about Alm being made "angelic" when the overlap between their characters were already there in not just story... but personality as I already pointed out. And yet you conveniently ignored that. Alm in Gaiden has shown to be selfless, ridiculously kind, patient, understanding (traits shown in with the side characters. Who get recruited by Alm going out of his way, including patiently listening to others such as Rigelians like Zeke), and the one displayed as rational and reasonable (the end of Gaiden's chapter 2 where Alm gets slandered by Celica with the man trying to calm her down. Celica storms off, Alm just awkwardly continued on his merry way). The fact that you had to dig in Gaiden and use one singular example of the Japanese script: Alm being slightly informal toward Mycen... which can be interpreted as several things shows the inherent problem with your argument. Both me and Acacia have already discussed the idea that Awakening altered perceptions on Gaiden than what actually happened in Gaiden. You may just be one of those people if you're still believing that Gaiden Alm and Echoes Alm have a drastic difference in their characters; it's absurdity and a headcanon to argue that Echoes Alm is angelic and Gaiden Alm is not. As I said prior, the entire concept of Alm just may not be for you. Because his character was always this way.

Just as I thought, Gaiden Alm isn't rough and rude at all. Just slightly more casual, which is kept but also altered for the sake of consistency.

That's literally it. Gaiden Alm was slightly more informal (and inconsistent on that) but he was a caring dude that did what he did out of a similar passion to Echoes Alm. Both him and Echoes Alm did not hold back on their enemies with Echoes Alm directly saying to Tatiana that no one is his enemy unless they meet on the battlefield. Awakening spread this idea of Alm that people clung to and dissed Echoes Alm for following Gaiden. All of the divisive stuff involving Alm was long crafted by Kaga. Farm boy turned into prince? Gaiden. Alm being placed in better spots while Celica wasn't treated as equally? Gaiden. Heavily emotional with a clear cut care for his allies and friends? Gaiden. Yada yada.

"Actually bring solid arguments to the table" Oh shut up, of course you'd be quick to try and claim I made 0 solid arguments. Alm being made to be more consistent and formal doesn't make him angelic at all. What Echoes did with Alm was absolutely a concept in FE2. It's a fact that Gaiden Alm never failed, was handed things with minimal justifications, and had similar contrivances that you give Echoes Alm guff for. Alm as a concept was never going to be for you without massively changing what Gaiden was supposed to be. It's Alm and Alm alone that has to land the finishing blow on Duma with Celica needing to be saved by Alm in the end. It's Alm that gets the leadership position and it's Alm that had people like Clair loving him. It's once again Alm that had the plot convenient mark on him that recruited Zeke. Echoes Alm wasn't made angelic, he still acts a similar way to his Gaiden counterpart: reasonable, selfless, noble in spirit, and easily emotional. You massively overexaggerate the "rough around the edges" shit too, he's fairly chill just slightly informal from the minimal dialogue that exists. Alm was always this way. Gaiden Alm was patient and understanding, some of the characters' canon recruitments are based off Alm having patience, hearing others out, and not blindly being an aggressive jerk. It was Awakening that massively exaggerated Alm and the community ran with it.

Celica's feats are acknowledged more and seem to slightly increase in Echoes, she acknowledges her position as princess a lot more, she gets more scenes of her love toward her friends and Alm in general, etc. She definitely isn't perfect but a lot of it stems from Kaga giving her this passive personality and passive role to begin with. By the by, that "confrontation" between Alm and Mycen Jotari told you about doesn't actually exist in Gaiden. Mycen does say no at the idea of the old man joining the Deliverance just like in Echoes but then... Alm and co just leaves, with nothing bad coming out of it. Not even in Mycen's return does he criticize Alm or talk much about what changed with Alm within Gaiden. It's in Echoes where Mycen goes "are you ready?" and has that fantastic speech with Alm.

"Angelic twat" Here we go again with Jotari proceeding to push his headcanon version of Gaiden Alm. Gaiden Alm was never this rough around the edges super rude and mean dude. It's in Gaiden where Alm was consistently displayed as the right one in him and Celica's argument with Celica being the one to jump to baseless conclusions while Alm has to deny it. Alm listened to the opinions of others and even cried in the original. But boo hoo, it's the fault of the Echoes writers for sticking closest to whatever Kaga was doing with Alm than the "popular" community perception of the guy.

If you want Kliff and Tobin to struggle NOT being outclassed, I don't think making them mercs and or cavs is a great idea. Also, this is the timeline of Mycen: https://serenesforest.net/fire-emblem-echoes-shadows-valentia/articles/official-timeline/

I have "yet to give it" because I wasn't trying to come in the thread to make paragraphs about characters and compare them to Awakening. I really do not care for that, I already said that the Echoes characters aren't massively deep, but they're good characters that have a fair amount going for them. Not what you claim about them being super boring with nothing at all, that is just not true. Also, even remotely bringing Severa: a character with an appearance of two games to work with in comparison to side characters in a remake is inherently disingenuous. From what I saw and from your analysis, Severa isn't that deep at all... You just enjoyed digging through the loads of dialogue she has and display it for her overall consistent and slightly simple character. Which is fine, but it's not a multi level thing. How about the fact that he actively changes over the war and has guilt over the people he murdered? His friendships and how he had experiences outside of the village unlike Tobin, Faye, and Kliff? His nagging desire to do something with himself? How he tends to be fairly optimistic yet real on some things at the same time? Gray isn't just "Alm's village friend that likes Clair" with nothing else to him. Gray has a few other things that he admires or bounces off of. The small detail of him admiring "THE Clive" really adds to him as a person than just having 1-2 connections. Gray interacts with the world and isn't just the Clair and Alm guy. Lastly, he's given reasons to fight with Alm and has more reflection than a surprising amount of side characters in the entire franchise.

Except all of them provided backgrounds for the characters and gave them their own stories to tell than being nothing characters. Hell, some of them are the primary sources for a character's thought process on what's going on. It showcased Gray's change as a character and that there's more to him than just jokes and Clair. This stuff absolutely adds to their characterization, it doesn't go in depth but only a small few FE characters went in depth about themselves in main stories. Feels like you're overrating some characters you like while underrating characters that didn't catch your attention. Severa talks more sure but she isn't this super nuanced multi-level character like you claim. We just see more of her gimmick and same personality.

You only prove my point. You find them one dimensional purely from the supports while ignoring anything else. A lot of the characters definitely aren't super deep but acting like they're flat and have absolutely nothing is absurd. Hell, a lot of the supports in the game absolutely provide personality, you seem to focus on some of them that may not do it for you. They have the base conversations, the small amount of supports, memory prisms, and various amount of small lines in story even for characters like Atlas and Silque. Everyone that can be recruited has unique dialogue if you reject them and even if you talk to them again they get lines changed to reflect their personalities. At worst, SOV's crew reach the bare minimum of other FE side casts. Gray goes from a dude that barely took things seriously with a desire to do... something, anything than just rot in Ram Village to genuinely caring for Clair with the war maturing him more. He's one of the rare characters in the entire franchise to have a line like: "Maybe all the people I killed could forgive me".

It's not. Supports were always a flawed system that stuck around out of the fandom's attachment. You have people arguing that some casts don't have anything going for them just because the support pool happened to be small.

Exactly, Archanea had little content as is... It did not need to have it hijacked by Kris.

I mean- You're not wrong. Alm "conquered" both Zofia and Rigel with Conrad and Celica not bothering to oppose him, far too focused on Mila. Celica even marries him and rules WITH the ultimate savior king.

Conrad gave her the crown and told her to ascend, Mae and Boey have no qualms. Forcing them to magically care about Conrad, someone they barely know, and try to argue/ask about true heir shit is silly and will always be silly. It's not relevant, never has been, never will be, cope with the fact that it's already been taken care of and made clear. Your nitpicks are worthless. Celica is the important heir, not Conrad as he doesn't act like one and pushes everything onto Celica. Not when Echoes has zero focus on that. Zofia's already in chaos and focused on the war, any discussion about the future is irrelevant as Alm takes charge as ultimate leader and unifies Valentia. No one's going to randomly focus on a mysterious Conrad that they don't know is alive until the game is over. Conrad already says for Celica to ascend the throne and gives her the crown. If that isn't enough for you to put it together than that's just the work of your behavior and being petty over miniscule details.

No they would not, as they already bent the knee for Celica. They saw their friend accepting the throne, they have no reason to try and put up Conrad or talk about some random nonsense when Conrad already says that she can save this world, not him. They are going to support Celica and stick with that, as they should. The current focus was Mila, not the throne and the heir stuff that Mae and Boey blatantly don't care as much about. Clive? Sure whatever but Boey and Mae? The ones who go back home and stay out of the affairs? No. And you ignore that being worthy is a significant thing. If it's clear to the playerbase that Celica is more worthy then they have no reason to force a throne drama or discussion with Conrad. Not when the story was about Alm and Celica and their struggle with the gods, not the damn throne. Conrad already gave the crown to Celica and that's that. Accept it rather than making a mountain out of a molehill. Your discussion has long started to lose its worth when it's nothing but a nitpick. Trying to complain at the game because they didn't randomly force Conrad to be more important than he needed to be. Being the main character's sibling does not grant you dibs to inflate one's importance, Conrad already placed his faith in Celica in front of everyone, therefore nullifying some random "more legitimate heir" bullshit by default. As Conrad blatantly doesn't want the throne and directly says for Celica to take it.

Memory prisms and expand multiple characters' roles without forcing an avatar in.

Yep as Kris taking Marth's dialogue instead (unlike Echoes where that doesn't happen) and Marth, a far more experienced character, being made worse is inexcusable. Bad logic.

Your examples are worthless junk. Boey and Mae randomly bringing it up when they already saw Conrad relinquish the throne opportunity to Celica is out of character nonsense for them to do. They also DON'T give a shit about that kind of discussion, far more focused on protecting Celica and going home. But nice projection and declaring any disagreeing point with you as "lack of argument" just because you want to cover your ears ignore it. Conrad is not important, Celica secures everything and did far more than him. They don't need to waste time and development for a character that only presents himself as a knight to protect Celica. Celica was already ascending the throne, they don't need to address "rightful heir" when Celica is just as, if not more, worthy as I already made clear. The characters that talk about that kind of crap are far away from Conrad and are on Alm's route, where they accept Alm as their leader. They're not going to change the entirety of the game's structure just because you feel like nitpicking.

Yes it does, Conrad not having the throne nor being challenged about that is made clear as he told Celica to already. Which she long accepted... in front of everyone, with all of the common people only seeing the princess who cared enough to take the mantle. Celica being the more suitable leader is exactly why the game doesn't make a big deal over Conrad, as he's objectively the lesser choice with Conrad himself placing his faith in Celica. That's not counting the fact that Zofia was already a hot mess and busy with the war, terrors, pirates and all of this shit. There is no room in the game for some forced discussion and giving Echoes guff for not forcing a controversial character to detract from the main plot is just nuts, dude.

It IS a footnote as the game already acknowledged Celica as the more suitable leader. Both in and out of the game's context, Celica is the lord and came out of hiding to help people. While Conrad did not care and only came out for Celica, all while performing the coronation and directly telling her to go to the throne. There is no room to force some random scene in Celica's route when we already had our answer. No, that prementioned scene would once again be forced and dumb. Just make Boey and Mae look like idiots that forgot what happened at Mila's Temple. Boey and Mae were directly present for the coronation and accepted Celica as their ruler. Hell, in both Gaiden AND Echoes' endings they do not care for what happens next on the throne and instead head back to their simple home on Novis. Conrad did not need more forced "noteworthyness" he's a side character in a FE game who did not have the brand nor did he bother to reveal himself to the people who would ask. The game's structure literally cannot do it without randomly detracting from what the game is trying to do. Conrad's a controversial inclusion story-wise as is and you're telling me that the game did bad for not forcing him further and trying to LITERALLY DETRACT FROM THE MAIN PLOT? Jotari, come on. This logic makes no fucking sense and it's driving me nuts. You bring up that they should make light of Conrad's position in his ending, which they do as it's made clear that Conrad was content serving Celica and ignored any suitors. That's a dead giveaway how little value he puts in his position as he doesn't think about the future and anyone passing his legacy. Instead staying single and dying single. Any conversation is unrelated to the main story Gaiden told, like, ridiculously branched off, so it's POINTLESS to shove in.

Not when he makes Celica wear the crown and he doesn't have the brand, which was documented to be important in Valentian culture. He directly gave importance to her over him in front of everyone, so no one would give a shit. He'd only be asked (if anyone on Alm's route cared) after the game, as the game is not about Conrad and the throne. It's a fucking footnote dude.

Sort of, I won't fault a game if it doesn't force itself to do that. I like Mystery of the Emblem after all, but it irks the shit out of me when Kris was not only forced in a game that clearly didn't fit them... They hog the writing when Archanea finally had a chance to make people care about its side characters. Hell, a lot of people don't care for Marth and he's the goddamn main lead! What on earth was going through Maeda's brain to force an avatar and give Marth's achievements to Kris? This is inexcusable to me. You know you fucked up when I see the majority of people like Palla, Est, and Catria more from their inclusion in Echoes than New Mystery. And Echoes had waaayyy less dialogue and opportunities than NM. No shit if it's Kris stealing Marth's achievement and shining character moment. That does not happen in Echoes as no one is handed Alm's strategy scene, it's just removed to replace with a scene that's more consistent with someone as slightly inexperienced as Alm.