timon

Yes, and it's very weird, because it's the path that most people wil find themselves in, you'd think it would be the most polished. Let's look at facts: - Black Eagles / Edelgard has undeniably been pushed in prerelease and advertising - Edelgard IS a waifu wheter we like it or not - If someone picks up the game at random he's probably gonna end up in BE, even the first chapter pushes Edel (in the cutscene you're saving her after all, and she has more dialogue IIRC) - To not get C+ with her by ch11 you'd have to actively work against it - Someone on a first playthrough is probably going to talk to at least his units every month, you can't miss her incoronation - Since Edelgard is said "waifu" and she's your main character, there's no way you're saying "I must stay here" - For the same reason as above, and because the game works to make the Church as suspicious as possible, there's no way anyone picks "Kill Edelgard", unless they hate her Now, i'm not saying Crimson Flower gives off a bad impression of the game, I still think it makes for a beautiful path, and yet if they really wanted to push it so much they could've worked a lot harder to pull in new players into the series. Add in more animated cutscenes, give more space for emotional showdown with Claude/Dimitri. If this is the most common route you have to try and use it as a way to pick up new players for your next games. it's the route most reviewers are going to play, flash it out! idk, it sounds like marketing was doing one thing and development another. Maybe it was supposed to be completed but they had to release and so wrote off the war with TWSITD in the epilogue, even then, if you're pushing this route logic says to develop it first. DLC? I doubt it, would be weird for DLC to be route exclusive. I'm expecting something more on Rhea's or Jeralt's past, something that can work for every path. I'm also pretty sure those "additional characters" will be Rhea/Jeralt/Sothis, since they already have everything programmed into the game.

At least he looks somewhat closer to a man before the timeskip. There's nothing worse than long, straigthened hair on a guy. If it's asymmetrical it's even worse, what the hell is that thing, it looks like it's melting down from his head. Doesn't help that his whole face looks like it's pulled down. Note that this is my opinion so don't take offense, but if you have a dick and want long hair, the only way that kind of maybe works is Ferdinand's. Or if anything Felix post timeskip, I can understand a short-ish ponytail.

I honestly cannot understand how people play these games with Japanese dubs. They're always so high pitched and feel really, really forced. It's like every girl (+ignatz) is Bernadetta screeching, it's basically hell. On English voices I can say I particularly love Dimitri, Hubert, Rhea and Ingrid. On the other hand, I liked Lysithea before hearing her speak, and Ashe as well sounds a bit weird (though it's more about the timing than the tone, it sounds like he takes a breath before each word? Maybe it's just me).

Dislike -> Like Leonie became best girl, long hair is all it took, I love her. I thought Hubert would be bland, he turned out to be one of my favourite characters in the game, surely the best male in the game. He has strong morals, he's a troll, and I'm pretty sure he's a vampire. Amazing. Linhardt and Seteth are on the same boat, as I pretty much hated them prerelease and thought they'd be among the worst (both by design and personality). Their design still suck (though Linhardt is a bit less bad), but they're very good characters. Lin in particular is quite funny, I like how blunt he is more than the whole sleeping gimmick. Hilda is much deeper than what it seems, she's still not my favourite character, but I absolutely love how she looks (especially post skip), so it's enough for me. Sadly can't get her in my preferred route. Ferdinand, getting to know his character makes you realize he's not a cunt, he chases a book/fairytale kind of nobility and I like it. Long hair wasn't doing it for me, but I grew to like it (you could say it... grew on me. rofl) Like -> Dislike Someone said it better than I ever could, "flayn please shut up". Rhea too, though dislike is a bit much, I still like her character/voice/everything, but now I know where she stands. Dislike -> Dislike even more Caspar, he was bland and cringy from the prerelease, turns out he's also annoying as hell with all the fucking screaming, it's so bad. And he's a shit unit as well. Bernadetta, pretty much like Caspar, she was garbage in the prerelease, then I had one of her supports, she started SCREECHING. Out. Lorenz, why is everyone saying this guy got better in the timeskip? His hair got worse. I didn't think it could be possible but it happened, what the hell. Also he's an incredibly annoying character, I got the completely opposite impression than @Etheus, Ferdinand ultimately doesn't care about status, Lorenz on the other hand is just an asshole. Finally, I came to dislike Lysithea because of her too high pitched voice and Ingrid because she cut her hair, and I really don't like short haired girls (Mercedes is on that boat as well, but I didn't like her anyways).

I get your point, in theory you can just give a Lance to a Hero, but in the practical sense you can't actually focus someone on Lance, you have to get Sword/Axe up and then you're stuck with Swordfaire. Meanwhile, every single other skill level has a class going for it, Swordmaster, Warrior, Sniper, Grappler, Warlock, Bishop. There's a specialized way for everyone except for Lances. Yes, every single cavalry class needs Lance and there's a lot of them, and yes Paladin is a very good class, but that still doesn't fill the niche of someone who focuses down exclusively on Lance. As for skills, tbh whatever, just give them Lancefaire and Lance crit like with Swordmaster. btw in my post I forgot something, we need General, Fortress is the worst class in the game by a long shot (I'm pretty sure you're better of staying Knight if you're armored), and Great Knight is a pain with those requirements.

1. Flying mages, altought they would be OP, so maybe give them spell access but not great Mag stat 2. Something after Pegasus and before Falcon, I know Peg has the stats of an advanced class, but it's just not fun to stay in the same class for 20 levels. I'd make Falcon advanced and then make Dark Flyer a Master class (with magic access) 3. Most importantly, and biggest hole in the classes: Halberdier/Sentinel, I use a Lance, doesn't mean I want a (flying) horse. We need dedicated Lance infantry, I mean it's like the most common warrior archetype in history. That said I do like the way the system work, with Master Classes being optional, but the game should make it more clear, if a new person comes into the game they'll expect to have to have everyone in a Master tier at some point, and it can screw your units over, especially if you're going with swords and feel like you have no way of progressing (when in fact Assassin/Swordmaster is already progressed to the max). Wyvern Lord could use a nerf, they're stupidly good. I'm also of the opinion that Sniper should have longer range than Bow Knight, doesn't make sense that a dedicated archer shoots worse than a horseman, and it just makes Sniper outclassed and BK too good. Gender locks are fine by me, the Pegasus and Brawler lines that is, female should be able to get into Dark Mage and male should have a dedicated mage class (yes, you can stay as Warlock, but it's just crippling in Mov).

I'm talking about the imperial succession ceremony, I haven't found anyone talking/asking about it, but what the hell is the meaning of this? "in those dark times, your eyes and your fists were my salvation. Within your eyes I saw true care. And upon your fists clenched with indignity, I saw the blood that dripped and fell. Even as I bled, I felt that you, too, must also be bleeding" Now note that english is not my first language, hence I could be missing something, but what are they talking about? Because to me it really sounds like Ionus beat Edelgard in the past and she's greateful for it? I mean "upon your fists I saw the blood" and then "as I bled"... I read about pretty much I could find on her backstory, across what it's told in the 4 routes, and yet I can't find the reason he'd have her blood on his fists, or why she'd thank him for it (perhaps she felt like she deserved it, after the experimentations?).

From what I've seen/played, story-wise Empire route, gameplay-wise Golden Deer. If they didn't cut Crimson Flower short and have half the war happen off screen I'd probably say that for gameplay, too. The maps were fun, the problem is there's not enough of them. Also it really, really irks me that they had to limit Hilda of all people. It doesn't make sense, at all. It's already the most restrictive route in terms of character, don't take away a random one just for the sake of it, what the hell. And don't tell me she's against the empire or whatever, if you can recruit Ingrid (which is the most anti-imperialist character outside of Dimitri) you should be able to get Hilda. Hell, take away Lorenz, who's recruiting Lorenz anyways, but why Hilda 😞

I was wondering about it as well, since I got the respective items in NG+ and had no idea where they came from. They could be foreign crests, I'm saying this because there's the Noa Fruit which IIRC is described as an "exotic fruit" or something like that.

Weird that so many people found it difficult, honestly that map ran very smoothly for me, I'm not even sure why, it just didn't pose big threats. Dedue wasn't much of an enemy either, maybe it's because I was very heavy on mages, but I just stayed out of his range until I cleared the area and went in to kill him in one turn. Rhea is a joke, once you get how her sword works, I'm not proud to say that it took me a bit to understand why the hell my unit wasn't killing while the preview was saying it should. Dimitri is a bit tricky as he pretty much kills everything you throw at him, so you have to find a way to not get hit (either with dodgy units, gambits, or just oneshot). The big problem at the start is the Gremory, I can't remember if it's immune to Silence, but if it's not go for that, or use a Bow Knight to get a shot in and run out with Canto. With a Brave Bow it takes one turn. To me the Golems were the biggest pain (much like in chapter 18, actual cancer), again probably because I ran so many mages and they have magic immunity. That last chapter took me 50 turns and almost all my divine pulses.

I'm pretty sure it's by week, so redoing the instruct week could change the results.

Yup, supports reference other supports, I too had that Sylvain reference and also recall there's a reference to Hubert/Linhardt in Annette/Linhardt.

Small question I couldn't test with my file, is it possible to buy gender exclusive skills on Byleth? eg. unlock Darting Blow as female and buy it as male.

I fiddled around a bit with NG+ (not actually starting a run, just wanted to see what's up with it). I started with 8100 renown (from a Hard/Classic run), I guess I just had 2000 unspent renown lying around? Anyway I can safely say that buying professor level right away is not a good practice, do Flayn's mission, eat once, and then fish with the baits Flayn gives you. It's more than enough to get to E+, that means saving 500 renown (since every level has the same cost). And tbh I'm not even sure you need professor level that much for the first couple chapters, maybe it's better to try and get to D/D+ and then buy up to C+ for the extra battle. Also just realized you can put alternative hairstyles on lords (other than change appearence of your students), Dimitri does a Felix cosplay, Claude becomes a hipster and Edelgard is the most beautiful girl of this game wtf, weird how they went for the dumb horns when they had that model lying around.

Agreed on Hubert, tier lists should consider how useful a unit is throughout the game as a whole, not who gets to endgame as most broken. Hubert is a god in the first 5-6 chapters of BE, and he's still very good up until the timeskip. He's at risk of falling off afterwards as more options open up and more people can have his role, but Miasma/Banshee/Mire (especially Mire) early on are just amazing. And even then, if you can get him to DK fast he'll still be one of your best units (there's also the point that putting time into Lance is not completely wasted, since Frozen Lance is a delete button on any enemy). I'm not too sure if Dorothea is overall a better mage later on, I find she doesn't have the same raw power, though her spell list is arguably the best outside of Dark Mages.

It should be considered that not only the Western Church was influenced by TWSITD, but they had good reasons of starting a rebellion against oppression (let's not forget Lonato's story). And even if you consider them completely evil, executing them on the spot instead of advancing an investigation to understand their motives is just stupid, unless you're crazy for control and power (looking at you, Rhea). idk, the 2 situations are not really alike to me, one is removing a clearly threatening and evil organization from the world, the other is executing rebels on the spot without trying to understand anything (actually making it look more like she's trying to shut their mouth).

Well for me it went completely according to the "close allies" list so I thought it was based on that, here's what I got (S rank was Edelgard): Hanneman / Manuela Hubert / Petra Ferdinand / Bernadetta Linhardt / Lysithea Sylvain / Dorothea Caspar / Annette Ashe / Marianne Shamir / Leonie Alois (his closest ally was Shamir, but she had Leonie and Leonie had her, so I guess that one had priority) I'm pretty sure (I say pretty sure because last time I checked there were still 2 battles to fight) everyone had each other as the closest ally, and with the exception of Alois there was no overlap, so I guess if you do it carefully you can just base it off that list.

If I may add something irrelevant - don't come and kill me - Dimitri without an eyepatch is MILES better. The eyepatch is just so stupid and out of place, the longer hair, heavy eyes and black armour are more than enough to convey the transformation, making him the captain from Spongebob doesn't add anything. But yeah, I agree with @Spectrum, people like to treat Edelgard as a villain, but she has a (mostly) rational revolutionary process going on, with a very honorable goal. Dimitri basically uses his position as king to get his personal revenge, that's much worse if you ask me. And I'm not saying he's not a good character, I truly like him, but I can't understand why there aren't 1000 topics about his actions like with Edelgard. If I had to make a villain->good list it'd be TWSITD, Rhea, Dimitri, Edelgard, ... , Claude. The first is obviously the big villain and I'd say Rhea as well is mostly evil unless you play Church (and even then...). Dimitri and Edelgard are gray, but again, she's got honorable reasons and at least some rationality, he lets himself be driven by emotion. Which is understandably his character arc, but as a king that's just completely wrong. Claude is mostly good, though he is more of an observer, which is also the best thing about him and GD as a whole.

Resetting works in a weird way in this game, basically nothing is random, everything is a consequence. Which sounds deep, but what I mean is that if you want a different outcome you have to do something different before that event occurs. eg. if no one asks to join try redoing the previous instruct in another way and it might happen. That said, I'm pretty sure just one student per month can ask, you could try asking them yourself, maybe you've got the reqs (a B support brings them down significantly).

I made great use of the scythe, as my Sylvain was too slow to double anyways so he just needed raw power, and at that point IIRC Silver is not yet easily available. Also Paladins are quite a good class imo, so I wouldn't rule out high Lance level (and there are some really, really good lances in the game). They also have crazy durability which makes for good combart art spam. Last but not least, if you give it to a Dark Knight it's basically a cosplay.

Leonie is such a lovely character, it's a shame that her supports with Byleth are that, but that aside I can really see them getting together, she'd follow him anywhere. On the topic of S ranks, am I the only one that finds the "confession" arts very, very unsettling/weird? I mean the animations in Fates were awkward, but those pictures are just... off, I don't really get the change in style compared to the rest of the game just for that one scene.

Absolutely, but then there are some things that you (as Byleth) should want to know and there's no reason as for why you can't. In the Black Eagles path your origin is never addressed if not for a brief dialogue that doesn't say anything explicit or comprehensible. I'd say your character is supposed to be curious about themselves no? Corrin was wrong on so many levels, and one of those was that he was way too emotional for an avatar. But Byleth is the opposite, there are some things that are just frustrating, why doesn't he want to know stuff, to inquiry (about himself, about the thing that lives in his head, about the reasons of the war) he just goes along with what other people say and do. I'm not saying give me a cruciual choice on every chapter, but at least let me ask questions. Then there's the final slap in the face, when the game tells you in the endings that there was a hard fought war against TWSITD. I really wonder what the hell the point is of just telling you about it when you could've fought it yourself, if we consider that Crimson Flower is 3-4 chapters shorter than the other routes it seems something purely related to running out of development time or something like that. A game should be "completable" in one run, the cruciual lore/story points should be addressed regardless of the path you take (in different ways, with different importance, but explained nonetheless). I mean it's just 3 things really: Byleth's origins, dealing with the dark bois and at least some explanation on what the deal is with Sothis/Seiros/Nemesis/Crests/Relics. Those 3 topics are basically the questions that run in the player's head throughout the whole game, you can't leave everything hanging. What should be route exclusive is stuff like Dimitri's backstory, what happens to Rhea, Edelgard's motives, ecc.

Yeah, I was incredibly underwhelmed, I was hoping for something related to her past, not a copy past without true meaning for her character. Felt rushed, like many things in Crimson Flower.