Whisky

I see. I wonder how different the game would be if you could trade it to someone else. If the Ragnell was an S rank Sword that could be used by anyone with the weapon level to use it. Oh, I didn’t know that. But like you said, either way, he isn’t at full strength here. I read through some of the dialogue last night. I can’t find much concrete information about Stefan, but it seems to be implied that he’s quite old. He’s knows about a lot of stuff that most people don’t. He knows stuff that the Goddess Yune doesn’t even know. He seems to be highly experienced both in terms of how much he knows about the world and how much he knows about swordsmanship. We do know that he has more experience than Ike, unless he just took a break in training for awhile. We don’t know for sure who is more experienced between Stefan and Zelgius but it seems to be Stefan. In terms of skill. Well if stats are anything to go by, Zelgius has very high Skl but lower Spd. Stefan is faster but the Black Knight is much stronger, and they are both incredibly skilled swordsman. Something else I found is that Dheginsea says that he has been around for a long time and that he knew the first branded. Who is the first branded? Is it a character we’re supposed to know about, or is the point that Dheginsea knew this person from a long time ago and it doesn’t matter who it is? I don’t think Sephiran is a branded? Also Dheginsea is referred to as ‘the most powerful being in the world’. Just an interesting statement. Edit: Wait, did you imply that Zelgius is a branded too? I must have forgot about that. It wouldn’t seem to tell us much though without more specifics. Zelgius doesn’t need to have improved. He wasn’t at full strength when Ike fights him in POR. In POR I think that both Stefan and Zelgius are better than Ike. By the end of RD, Ike has surpassed Zelgius and is stated to be as strong as Greil was in his prime. Stefan doesn’t have much dialogue in RD, except for when he demonstrates greater knowledge than a Goddess. He might be about equal with Zelgius, but it’s hard to say. Even when Ike surpasses Zelgius I don’t think the gap between them is very large. Zelgius is still an incredible swordsman too. Out of the three of them, I think that they all use different styles. Stefan doesn’t wear as much armour and instead relies on greater mobility, as shown by his lower Def stat but higher Spd stat. The Black Knight is famous for his armour, and while he is still fast, he is not as fast as Ike or Stefan, but he does have the highest Def. Ike is in between the two in both stats and in the amount of armour we can see them wearing in their models and artwork. Both Ike and Zelgius are very strong, more so than Stefan, and all three of them have very high skill in both story and stat wise. We could also examine their skills. Ike has Aether. Zelgius has Black Luna, and Stefan has Astra. This is another difference in styles. All three of them have mastered very powerful and advanced skills but they all have have very different effects. This sort of reflects the same difference in their styles as their stats too. Stefan, being he fastest, is the one that uses a skill that strikes 5 times. The Black Knight, perhaps feeling that the best strategy is to rely on powerful armour, has mastered a skill to pierce through his opponent’s armour. And Ike’s skill is again in the middle. He strikes twice, ignoring part of his opponent’s armour.

Good point about him always starting with max sword rank. That definitely implies an extremely high level of skill. Stefan is definitely implied to be an amazing swordsman, especially in POR. I think Ike might surpass him by the end of RD though. I guess there might not be any confirmation or denial of this in the game. There isn't actually any story reason for why Ike is the only one to wield the Ragnell is there? In RD, anyone with an SS in Swords (which Stefan has) can use the Alondite, so I don't see why he couldn't use the Ragnell too. The Black Knight is actually implied to have been holding back in POR though. Ike finally defeating him in a 1v1 fight in RD is meant to signify Ike finally surpassing him and the Black Knight also says at that point that Ike fought as well as his father. So if Ike doesn't surpass Stefan until around then, then Stefan probably wouldn't have been able to defeat the Black Knight, or he would have been about equal with him. Stefan seems pretty impressive in gameplay. I didn't get him in my first playthrough. Then I recruited him in my second playthrough and saw that his base stats were already comparable to my unit's end game stats from the previous playthrough. In story, I'm not sure. Greil, Ashnard, Ike, The Black Knight, and Stefan are all incredibly powerful swordsman. That's a good source. It proves that Stefan was better than Ike in POR, but that's what I already figured. The game doesn't tell us when Ike surpasses Stefan, if at all.

I still don’t agree on the translation but I’ll accept it. So Valter calls Erika “strong”. That doesn’t say anything about her being almost as strong as him. Strong is relative. Valter is sadistic. He wants is prey to resist and put up a fight against him. He probably has a certain degree of respect for her strength. But he’s still Valter, The Moon Stone. There isn’t any evidence to suggest that Erika is as strong as Valter. She can be strong, and he could still be stronger. Plus I think the gameplay more or less contradicts her being as strong as him, but I don’t know if you care about that. Alright. I guess he is meant to be among the strongest people on the continent. I would say that the game has a gameplay/story segregation problem here because he doesn’t really display the level of power that he’s hyped up to be, however, he could very well be past his prime or just rusty. Divine Pulse is certainly a huge plus for Byleth but it is not an end all argument like you seem to be saying. He needs to be at least at close enough level to his opponent for multiple chances to actually make the difference. If he is fighting an opponent too much stronger than himself, he could just keep losing every time he uses Divine Pulse, and he can’t use it an unlimited number of times. Being immortal doesn’t mean anything here. Immortal isn’t the same thing as invincible. I agree with Jotari here. Byleth can use Divine Pulse another chance and he could change things. But it is possible for him to still get defeated again if his opponent is too much stronger than him.

My question is in the topic. I am wondering how strong canonically, Stefan is compared to Ike, the Black Knight, Greil,etc? He's clearly a great swordsman, better than Ike at first in POR. I am guessing that Ike eventually surpasses him, either by the end of POR or sometime during RD? And as great of a swordsman as Stefan is, I am guessing that he is not a strong as the Black Knight? I am just wondering if anyone has any definitive information on this. Any quotes from the dialogue about it or something like that.

Valter wants her to put up a fight and not just roll over and die, but I think he's still highly confident in is ability to defeat her. He denies Riev's offer to help him. He doesn't seem to think that he needs help. His only statement is very vague. He calls her "strong". How Strong? Physically strong or strong willed? We would need Valter to specify what he means. He doesn't say 'Erika will be a tough fight for me' or 'I don't know if I can win'. He just says she's "strong". He could still think that he's stronger, and in gameplay he's a hell of a lot stronger before she gets the bracelet. This is his battle quote with her: Valter: Mmm... I've been waiting for you, Eirika! Eirika: Who are you? Valter: Have you forgotten? We met once at Castle Renais. No? Look closely, Eirika. Do you not remember the face of he who will master you? Eirika: Wha–!? Valter: Yes, resist. It’s much more fun for me that way. Come, Eirika. I should like to tame you. Eirika: I am here on a mission. One that I swore to my brother I would fulfill. I will not be stopped by the likes of you! He says that it's more fun if she resists, but he's very confident that he can win. Edit: I'm not denying that she becomes very strong after getting the bracelet and her legendary weapon. And I'm not denying that she has grown between the beginning of the game and when you fight Valter. But I don't think that she has grown enough to be as strong as Valter until after getting the bracelet.

I agree that Lances and Axes should be more accurate. Axe users especially are usually not worth using. There are times when it is worth using Axes on certain characters like Perceval, Dieck etc, but Axe focused units aren't good. I agree that having more accuracy on Axes would balance the game better. Lance focused units are already good. Armor Knights are at the worst in series in this game, but the Cavaliers, Pegasus Knights and Wyvern Riders are all good. Lance's low accuracy doesn't stop Miledy from being probably the best unit in the game. Some Lances like Steel Lances are especially inaccurate so I still agree that the game would be balanced better if Lances were a little more accurate. Swords are the best weapons over all in FE6 but then we have FE7 where Sword locked units are considered worthless. In most FE games, Swords are often considered bad. As for Bows? What's wrong with Bows? They're a lot better in this game than in a lot of FE games like FE7. Klein, Igrene, and Shin are all good. Like I said, I enjoy FE6 more the more times I play it, so I don't think that it has "no replayability". I think FE7 has bigger flaws and find it very overrated. More variety in mission objectives could make things more interesting, but I don't think it's inherently a problem for the objectives to all be Seize. There are secondary objectives in some Chapters. More mission objectives shouldn't be added in just for the sake of having that variety. I think FE7 did that a little too much to over correct this problem in FE6. Cog of Destiny for example really shouldn't have been a rout battle. It should have been Seize or Kill Boss. FE7 has a lot of annoying gimmicks like protecting suicidal green units. FE7 has Battle Before Dawn. FE6 has flaws, but I feel that they are exaggerated. Especially in comparison to FE7, which I find very overrated, and I find FE6 very underrated.

That quote makes more sense. It definitely implies a certain level of strength, but it is very vague. I have a hard time believing that pre-bracelet Erika could fight against someone like Valter.

This comment makes me sad. The more times I play FE6, the more I like it. The more times I play FE7, the less I seem to like it. It was at one point my favorite FE but not anymore. FE6 was one at one point my least favorite, but now it’s my favorite. It has some flaws, and a lot of frustration can be avoided in successive playthroughs after the first or if you look up some certain info online while playing. This makes the first playthrough potentially pretty rough. Despite its flaws I think it’s better than FE7. I think FE7 has a lot of flaws of its own that seem to stand out more in successive playthroughs rather than getting better like the flaws of FE6. By they way, what are the “many flaws” that you think FE6 has? Ambush spawns are probably its biggest flaw.

Of course. The Black Knight is very strong too, being the milestone for Ike, and being only slightly below Greil who is pretty much the strongest guy ever. I would say that the only characters in Telliius that might be any stronger than Ike, the Black Knight, Ashnard, and Greil, would be the Laguz Royals, Sephiran, and Ashera. Oh, and maybe Giffca, since he’s not technically a Laguz Royal but he’s still just as strong.

That’s interesting. I just thought of something else too. While Ashnard is of course very strong, he doesn’t fight on his own like Greil, Ike, and the Black Knight all do. He rides a giant Wyvern in combat. No doubt, this Wyvern must increase his combat abilities right? So maybe that explains why he is so strong as a boss in POR. I mean if even Tibarn can’t beat him, that puts him at near Dheginsea levels doesn’t it? But on foot without his Wyvern he could be only as strong if not a little weaker than the Black Knight?

I see. So that seems to imply that Ike at the end of RD is about equal with Gawain in his prime. We know that the Black Knight and Ashnard are both very strong, but Ike defeats the Black Knight so that makes him at slightly above the Black Knight. The Black Knight admits as much, saying that Ike has surpassed him. The one I’m not sure about is Ashnard. I don’t think there is any dialogue comparing his strength to Ike or the Black Knight is there? I don’t think Ike could beat him 1v1 in POR. Certainly not in gameplay. Actually, I don’t think even Tibarn can defeat Ashnard 1v1 in POR. In RD, we see Tibarn have a small clash with the Black Knight, but it is unclear who would’ve won if they continued the fight. All of the Laguz Royals are incredibly strong, especially Tibarn. In RD gameplay, Tibarn seems stronger to me then Ike but I’m not sure. Is there any dialogue comparing Ike to the Laguz Royals? It seems that the strongest swordsmen in all of Tellius would be Ike = Greil > Black Knight, with Ashnard fitting in somewhere around there. For overall power, not just swordsman, the Laguz Royals can definitely compete along with a few other characters, like Sephiran. I think Dheginsea is probably one of the strongest characters in the whole series. For only swordsman, how does Stefan compare to Ike?

Actually it doesn’t really matter if he left before or after Ashnard was King. It matters if he was already one of the Four Riders before Ashnard became King, which it seems like he probably was. I thought that the Black Knight was about as strong as Greil in his prime? He seemed to think he was. That’s why he challenges Greil in POR, and I thought that Ike defeating the Black Knight was a sign of him surpassing his father? Or was Greil in his prime still stronger than Ike at the end of RD? And yes, I did mean pre tendon cut.

Um, what exactly are we disagreeing on? Yes Wyrmslayers were no doubt more common during the Scouring but do you think that every solider in the war had one? The humans were fighting dragons for their survival, to avoid being extinct, they would do whatever they had to to survive. If a soldier doesn’t have a Wyrmslayer, they don’t just get to go home. What about Jahn’s statement is vague? It’s pretty clear actually. Humans won because they outnumbered the dragons and because they had the Divine Weapons. That can’t be interpreted any other way. What do you want him to say? Exactly how many soldiers the humans had and what weapons each of them used?

@vanguard333 That's true as well. It's hard to say how much of the lore is just exaggerated rumors. Like the Sword of the Creator's feat of 'cutting through a mountain'. That feat is pretty much stated as being a rumor. We don't know if that's actually true or not, Most things about Anri would require a lot of assumptions. We know almost nothing about him. Same thing can be said about the Heroes of the Scouring from Binding Blade. They're all state in lore to have been incredibly strong, but we don't know really know much about them. We do know that they wielded the Divine Weapons and that they slayed dragons but that's about it. I don't disagree with that. I just realized that the statements about Jeralt's power might have been referencing him in his prime, and he may now be either getting older or rusty. That makes it harder to analyze how strong he was, but it also means that their might not actually be any gameplay/story segregation there after all. It would be strange otherwise for them to tell us that he's the strongest knight ever when Catherine is much stronger in gameplay and wields one of the Relic Weapons. I don't think Jeralt ever used a Relic Weapon. That's true. Oh, I see. Thanks for correcting me. And Greil received his injury and left Deign before Ashnard became King? Come to think of it... Who would win; Greil vs Ashnard? That's fair. I think my only point originally was that Alm grows stronger throughout the game. For the record, I don't think Alm could be Ike. @Jotari Well as far as we see in game, Wyrmslayers seem to be quite rare. It's possible that they were used more commonly during the Scouring, and have only became rare since then. I don't know if there is any dialogue confirming one way or the other? And I agree that magic would be more effective against dragons than regular weapons. From what we see in game, Mages seem to be a relatively small portion of most armies' forces. I agree that these weapons helped humans fight dragons during the Scouring, but I don't think every soldier in the war would have had access to them. Jahn specifically cites the humans numbers as their advantage over the dragons. He says that each dragon was stronger than each human, but that the humans outnumbered them enough to force the dragons to create the Dark Dragon and start producing War Dragons. I think that Jahn's dialogue is the most information we have about what actually happens during the Scouring. Even Athos and Bramimond in FE7 say very little about it.

Hey, it's been awhile. I've been busy but I'll respond now. There are many unknowns when comparing characters between different games. How much of it is Alm and how much is the Falchion? I think it's both. We know that Alm wouldn't be able to defeat Duma without that Falchion, but I also don't think a regular average soldier could beat Duma with the Falchion either, even ignoring that only royalty are able to wield. Would another strong character be able to beat Duma with the Falchion if they could wield it? Someone like Camus or Sabre? I would say that they could, but that doesn't mean that Alm isn't strong, all of those characters are strong. I definitely agree that that would have been better thematically. I think it depends on each specific situation. Every situation needs to be looked at differently. I think that we can logically conclude that people grow stronger and more skilled as they gain experience in combat, and the story does not usually contradict that. Weapons do get worn down over time and would need to be maintained. If you strike armor with a blade a few dozen times, I imagine the weapon would be pretty worn out. I don't think that we can look at stats and make exact calculations in game to make story conclusions, but I do think that higher stats on a character generally represent that character being stronger, unless specifically contradicted by the story, which is very rare, if it happens at all. I appreciate when games have good gameplay/story integration. I think it would be both. The statement confirms that they grew stronger, and we got to experience first hand what the statement is talking about in practice. There are some epilogues that don't specifically state that the character has gotten stronger but don't contradict them growing stronger either. I think that we can basically assume that they have grown stronger. We see them fighting alongside the other characters that have grown stronger, throughout the whole game. I don't think we can ignore that and just say "nope, they shouldn't be able to do the things that we see them do". Also as I've said a few times, you have a young inexperienced guy go through an adventure, fighting in a war, and gaining experience. I think we can logically conclude that will have grown. I think their gameplay reflects those stats though. Leveling up applies the growths. It just doesn't make sense to me that characters wouldn't grow stronger throughout the game. We see it happen first hand throughout the game through leveling up, and the story very rarely contradicts that. I actually hate gameplay/story segregation more than most people seem to, and I appreciated seeing that Dimitri was stated to be stronger in the support, which reflects their actual stats in game, ignoring RNG, and favoritism. Rhys is a good example, and so is Jeigan. He is an experienced veteran. He is better in combat than the young inexperienced knights that haven't seen any combat, but he is old rusty. Well past is prime. I think his stats reflect that well. I have no idea how Skills are meant to work in the story. We see how they work in the game so we can try to infer some sort of similar way of it working in the story. The thing is, these are only video games. The characters we are analyzing are video game characters. The gameplay isn't just a adaptation of the story of the character's journeys. The gameplay is the character's journeys. That's why I put so much importance on what we see happen in the game. Because that is the source material for these characters. If there is a FE anime or book or movie or whatever, I would consider the movie version of Ike or Alm different versions of the characters than the video game versions. I wouldn't consider the movie versions the 'canon' versions. The main reason I brought up Scenscale in the first place, was to show that Alm is learning new skills, which is a sign of growth. That's interesting. So it's basically stated that King Anri is stronger than Marth, but that Marth seems to have more charisma or better leadership or something. That doesn't make Marth weak. That just makes King Anri stronger. I wonder if King Anri is canonically one of the strongest characters in the FE series? I agree that it is better portrayed and written for Ike in POR. I think it would be better if other games did things more like POR. I don't think that that means that characters in other games don't grow stronger though, I just don't think the writers of the other games portray it as well. Oh. I wasn't sure what Mycen says when he meets Alm again after so long. Do you think that we can compare their stats? The stats seem to sometimes do a great job of reflecting the characters canon strength like with Jeigan I think that your other characters surpassing Jeigan's stats is a reflection of them surpassing him in the story. Does that work for Sir Mycen? Is Jeralt stated to be the greatest in the entire continent? He doesn't seem so impressive when he's a green unit. I think POR does way more to show and state how great of a warrior Commander Greil is. It might be a case of POR just portraying it better with better writing, but from my perspective, I feel like Greil would completely destroy Jeralt in a fight. He seems to have way more feats and accomplishments. He was one of the 4 riders of Deign, which is a country that promotes people for their strength. Jeralt is pretty much just stated to be "strong". How strong? "Strong". I mean just fighting the regular manaketes or dragons that you fight throughout the game in many FE games. You can have any of your characters fight them, especially with magic, a Wrymslayer, or Dragonsbane(? the Lance in Shadow Dragon.) Some characters have an easier time and some have a harder time fighting dragons, but you do in fact fight multiple dragons througout the games as normal enemies. I don't think it would be fair or make sense to say that most characters wouldn't canonically be able to fight dragons, just based on 'dragons are strong', when we see exactly what it takes for a character to fight dragons in gameplay. Dragons are strong in gameplay but they aren't invincible, and the story does in fact support that, not contradict it. Dragons were fought by humans in lore. Dragons are definitely stated to be stronger than average humans but they are not invincible. You can't just say 'canonically a human can't survive a dragons breath'. How strong is dragons breath? Is every attack in gameplay a direct hit? In gameplay, dragons breath is strong, probably strong enough to one shot kill an average human, but is it impossible for an average human to survive getting hit by a dragons breath? People can survive being injured and keep fighting. Injured isn't the same thing as dead. I could say that realistically, all magic should pretty much be impossible for any human to survive, but that doesn't work. This is Fire Emblem. We know that people have powers that don't exist in real life. You also can't say 'in gameplay, characters get impaled by a lance or slashed by a sword, and in story, they shouldn't be able to survive that'. Who's to say that they can't survive that? It is possible to survive getting cut or stabbed in real life. Did the attack hit a vital? Apparently not if they're still alive. Characters could potentially continue fighting with injuries until one of the combatants are able to strike a fatal blow. " Valter: “You there, with the girl. Tell me, would that be the wayward princess of Renais? Well, this must be my lucky day. You’re a dead man. The wench goes with me.” " Did you use the wrong quote from Valter? That dialogue doesn't say anything about Erika's strength. Valter doesn't say anything about Erika being a match for him in that dialogue.

@Landmaster Edelgard spread propaganda throughout her imperial troops. Telling them that they were liberating the world from monsters that have been leading Fodlan in secret for decades. Yeah, Randolph believes what he is doing is right. He is following orders to fight for his beloved nation and to free the continent from the monsters that have been lying to the world for so many years. There is some truth mixed in with that but it isn’t the whole truth. We don’t know how much of the truth Randolph knew, probably not a whole lot. He is a soldier fighting in a war that was not started by him. It was started by Edelgard. Once he is captured, he is a prisoner of war. He doesn’t ‘deserve’ to die anymore than a German soldier in WWII.

Actually people with regular weapons can kill dragons. In the Scouring, the dragons said that they were losing because the humans outnumbered them. I don’t remember the exact dialogue, if the Divine Weapons were created before or after the War Dragons, but I do remember that the humans outnumbering the dragons is specifically cited as a reason why the dragons were losing and needed to create the War Dragons. A normal weapon will normally have little effect on a dragon, but if there are enough people attacking the dragon, it would be possible for them to take it down eventually. A lot of them would probably die in the process though. Edit: A lot more humans were involved in the Scouring than just the eight heroes. And most of them wouldn’t have Divine Weapons.

I may have misunderstood you before. I just don’t think that there is any Gameplay Story Segregation without a specific contradiction between them, and I do not think that levels usually contradict anything. There are exceptions like what you pointed out, but that gets complicated. I think it’s safe to say that characters grow throughout the game. I agree with Flere’s above post. I think that characters would grow from experience, and the levels in game don’t contradict that. They support it. We can look at a characters feats and ask, would Alm at the beginning of the game be able to defeat Duma? (Not on his own. I do not agree that Alm could defeat Duma 1v1.) His feats at the end of the game compared to the beginning seem to imply growth. I agree that it could have been written better, but that doesn’t mean that he didn’t grow stronger canonically because he always wins all of his battles throughout the game. You can grow without failure. Thank you. This is an interesting discussion. What if in canon, characters are expected to have grown a certain amount? In game, you can choose how much to use a character, how many levels they gain etc. But character endings in most FE games talk about all of the characters as if they’ve grown a lot and become strong even if you didn’t use them, like Guy being stated as a great swordman at the end of FE7 even if you never used him. In the Dimitri / Raphael support, Dimitri is stronger than Raphael. I think this is a great example of Gameplay Story Integration because Dimitri does indeed have higher Str base and growth. You could have been training only Raphael and he could be stronger than Dimitri in game, but most of the time, Dimitri should be stronger if you train both of them. I mean, I’d say that it uses energy in some way or another. I don’t think he could just spam it for free in canon. There is dialogue in Shadow Dragon that implies that Marth doesn’t grow stronger or more skilled? Like Flere said above, I think we can logically conclude that characters wouldn’t be able to defeat dragons and gods and such at the beginning the game. I don’t know about the specific Shadow Dragon example though. But if there isn’t dialogue implying that he doesn’t get stronger then I would say that he does. Like I said, in my opinion, Gameplay Story Segregation only exists once there is a contradiction. If there is nothing in story or dialogue contradicting Marth gaining levels in game, then I think that the levels are a way of seeing how much stronger he has gotten. This actually seems to be where our disagreement is then. Like Flere said, I think we can logically conclude that Alm has gotten stronger throughout the game. I do not think that Alm In the village at the beginning of the game would be able to defeat Duma, or Berkut for that matter. We see him go from fighting bandits to fighting elite soldiers and monsters. Also like I said, if the story and dialogue do not specifically contradict leveling up, then I think leveling up is a way for us to see how much stronger characters get. This is a video game, and I think that our first hand experience of playing through the game tells us a lot. I don’t know. I think it could be both. All of Alm’s forces have grown including Alm himself. Learning how to fight against Regelian forces is a type of growth too. Like I said, I agree that it could have been presented better in the story but that doesn’t mean that Alm doesn’t grow. Has Ike gotten stronger and more skilled or has he just gotten more used to fighting the Black Knight? Has Alm gotten stronger and more skilled or has he just gotten more used to fighting Regelians? Is Alm ever stated to surpass Sir Mycen? That would be a clear statement of growth. Sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude. Just trying to understand. I agree that it gets complicated and it depends on the context. I think that it is very hard to compare characters from different games. I guess the only thing we disagree on is the levels and Alm growing. Do you agree that seeing characters fight dragons in game means that those characters are indeed able to fight dragons?

No, actually. It seems very inconsistent. How do you decide what a videoGAME character is capable of if you don’t look at what they are capable of in the GAMEplay. This is a video game. What I see characters do in gameplay is what I believe they can do. I’m genuinely confused how you decide what is canon for a character and what isn’t? You only accept feats that are specifically stated in dialogue? Not ones done in gameplay? Personally I take everything I see in the game from gameplay, story, dialogue, lore, etc., as long as none of it contradicts itself. If the story implies one thing and the gameplay implies something else, then we have an inconsistency that we need to figure out, called gameplay/story segregation. Gameplay story segregation does not automatically exist without the contradiction. In the Alm example, you can say that it’s bad writing. You can say that it is presented poorly and that Alm is a Mary Sue. You can say that it isn’t done in a way that properly shows or feels how much stronger Alm has gotten, but you can’t say that he didn’t get stronger. In gameplay, he gains experience and gains stats. In story, logically, we can pretty much just assume that a character would grow stronger from combat experience. Does Alm not have the Scenscale in your canon because that’s only a gameplay skill? Can’t we say the same thing about Ike? One of Ike’s greatest feats is defeating the Black Knight. That happens in gameplay. We only know that Ike is stronger than the Black Knight because we defeated him first hand in gameplay. Ike defeats the Black Knight in POR but it is later stated that the Black Knight was holding back. He then defeats him again in RD. What makes that different than the Alm and Berkut example, besides better writing? I feel that your canon is just decided based on what ever you decide at the time. I’m not trying to be rude or otherwise difficult, I just genuinely don’t understand how you can basically choose to ignore GAMEplay when analyzing characters from videoGAMES. Edit: It’s generally harder to agree on loose ideas and easier to agree on specific points. Rather than going back and forth on our own definitions of how we like to analyze characters, in think we should look at specific points. I have a feeling that we wouldn’t even disagree on most specific feats. You don’t disagree that Alm got stronger throughout the game for example, you just don’t like the way I described or how it handled in the writing of the game. Is there a specific point that you actually disagree with me on?

Gameplay/story segregation is when there is a contradiction between the gameplay and the story. If there’s no contradiction, then you can look at how the gameplay works. This is a game. Of course the gameplay matters. In regards to level, no, I wouldn’t take the numbers too literally. But level is basically a characters amount of experience. People learn and grow through experience. Logically, characters fighting throughout a war will of course grow stronger/more skilled. In regards to HP, a character can get cut by a sword and survive, injured. Who’s to say that it hit a vital? Edit: Are you guys actually arguing that Alm at the beginning of the game, with no combat experience, is just as strong/skilled as he is at the end of the game after gaining experience from fighting in a war, getting a promotion, learning skills like the Scenscale, and defeating Duma? (With help)

We know that they all get stronger from experience throughout the games. Obviously so does Ike, but you said that Alm “is never shown to get any stronger”. Also, isn’t Celica learning Ragnarok and Omega Raknarok am impressive magic feat?

Attack a manakete with any character. What happens? Unless they are using a Wyrmslayer or a Divine Weapon, not much. That being said, most characters usually do need a legendary weapon to do much damage to a dragon, so that feat could be given to the weapons. Kurthnaga can fight other dragons in RD, and they can survive an attack from his breath. Also, he is definitely not the biggest or strongest dragon. Dhegisnea is. You can choose to attack a dragon 1v1 with any character you want. This is a game. You have that control. And most characters can fight dragons with Wyrmslayers. Or magic, which other non dragon characters can also survive.

Priscilla is great! She’s basically the ultimate support unit, being a staff user on a horse. I don’t know if she’s top tier or high tier, but definitely somewhere up there. Personally I like Priscilla. She has a cool design. I think Valkyries are always cool. I haven’t read through her supports enough to comment on her personality or background.

I love Binding Blade, but skipping any single game in the series won’t have much of an effect on your ability to play other games in the series.

He said it’s decent. He didn’t even say good. Disagreeing that it’s decent means calling it bad. How good it is can be debated but it’s definitely not bad. It’s not perfect, but not bad.