lenticular

First, I'd prefer if manaketes in particular remained exclusive to the existing continuities that already have them. And by that, I mean the use of the term "manakete" and the lore of dragons who seal their powers into stones to avoid degeneration, and instead take on human form. There's nothing wrong with this, but it's been done and I don't need to see it again. Let it come back if there are any future visits to Archanea, Magvel, or Elibe, but otherwise, let's stick with new types of dragon people, like the Goldoan laguz or like the Nabateans. This is what IS have been doing ever since Path of Radiance, and I hope they continue. As for whether there should be a part-dragon protagonist, I said no. I'm not really against it, per se. But I'm also not really for it, either. From the perspective of flavour, lore and story, I'm completely indifferent and don't mind either way. There are interesting stories they could tell about a part-dragon main character, but there are also plenty of interesting stories to be told about purely human characters. So I'm fine either way. Where it falls down, I think, is mechanically. Through Fire Emblem so far, dragons just haven't been all that interesting to use, because they have so many fewer options. Take Corrin, for instance. If you want to use dragon Corrin then you have two weapon options for the game, the dragonstone and the dragonstone+, and that's it. One is strong and slow, the other is weaker but faster. That's your choice. On the other hand, if you want to use Corrin with a sword, then you have 4 basic swords and 4 basic katanas, giving you finer gradations of the strong vs fast trade off. Then you also have the killing edge for crit, the armorslayer, wyrmslayer and spirit katana for effective damage, the kodachi for 1-2 range, the levin sword for magic damage, the brave sword for extra attacks, the axe splitter and dual katana to mess with weapon triangle, multiple "joke" weapons, and two different personal swords, one of which upgrades twice. That's over 20 different swords, compared to two dragonstones. Then you also have to consider that swords are a part of the weapon triangle, with everything that that entails, whereas dragonstones just sit on their own and don't interact with anything else. Swords just give a lot more choices and a lot more tactical depth. Sure, it would be possible to devise twenty different flavours of dragonstone as well, but that's a lot of work for very little return. Swords can potentially be used by literally everyone, are probably going to be used by multiple of your units and by a large number of enemies. Whereas for dragonstones, you'll have a maximum of three units in your army who can use them at all, probably aren't actually going to be using them on all three, and I don't recall a single enemy who uses them. Why go to the trouble of making more than two of the things, in that case? So I think that what I want overall is for the main character's weapon to be fully integrated with the rest of the game. And they potentially could do that if they chose to, but they also probably wouldn't. They'd probably do the same "this character is super special and unique" thing like they did with Corrin, which would leave us with the same issues in terms of gameplay.

If that was the intention, then it was really poorly executed. Sacrificing 2 points of movement for 2 points of speed is a poor trade, sure. But more than that, you still need to train in riding to get into cavalier/paladin in the first place. One of the big benefits that a lance infantry class could have had would have been that you wouldn't have to train riding. Which would have been great for characters with a strength in lances but a weakness in riding (eg Dedue, Seteth) but also good if you just want to hyper-specialise on lances and push for S and S+ rank, like you can do for other weapon types (with Swordmaster, Sniper, Warrior, Grappler, Bishop, and Warlock).

There's also Donnel in Awakening who starts out as lance infantry and promotes out of it. Not that that counts for much of anything. If I had to guess at a reason -- at least, at a reason other than "IS sometimes make weird and incomprehensible choices" -- then I'd guess that it's because in medieval Europe, polearm infantry is mostly associated with mercenaries and militia, whereas nobles are thought of as fighting either with lances from horseback, or with swords when they're on foot. (And note that I'm saying "associated with" and "thought of" here. My medieval military history isn't good enough to say whether these associations are truly accurate, but for something like Fire Emblem, accuracy is basically irrelevant. It's not meant to actually depict history.) Regardless, we all know how much the series loves its nobility and its tropes of nobility. And most games in the series represent that player's army as being small but elite. We are outnumbered, but we are better trained. And how better to represent that than to pack the enemy lines with the most basic type of soldier, the spear infantry? Not saying that I agree with any of this, mind you. But it's my best guess for why things are the way they are.

I agree with all of this, yes. Though I will say that his ceiling is still ridiculously high. Even measured by his ceiling, he's still one of the best characters in the game and one of the best lords in the series. That he can't reach the high highs of Edelgard and Dimitri says more about how overpowered they are than it does about any possible weakness of Claude's. I think that putting them on a Gremory is a fine choice, since it really covers for the biggest weakness of that class, it's low move. I often like to throw them onto a Fortress Knight, for the same reason. I think it largely comes down to a question of which you value higher out of consistency or power spike. If you put the DLC boots (or regular boots in this game or any other) onto a low-movement character (like a Gremory or Fortress Knight) then that's going to give them a consistent boost that is going to make the unit just that bit better, turn after turn. On the other hand, if you put them on a high-movement unit with canto (like a Falcon Knight or Wyvern Lord), then that's going to open up some plays that just wouldn't be possible otherwise, thanks to the ridiculous range. But at the same time, there will be a lot more turns where you just aren't doing anything with that extra range because it's complete overkill. Agreed. I think that Magic Bow+ would be a reasonable alternative to Black Magic if it meant you were training in Bows instead of Reason, but it doesn't. If you want to go down that route, you pretty much have to train in Bows as well as Reason, or else you have to have awful attacking options prior to unlocking the Dark Merchant for reliable Arcane Crystal access.

Even if you ignore Alm's secret royal parentage, and his brand, and all of that stuff, Alm is still at least noble-adjacent. And honestly, not that dissimilar to Ike. Like Gawain, Mycen must have been at least minor nobility to become a high-ranking general prior to the Deliverance. And just as Gawain didn't tell his son about his past, Mycen didn't tell his adoptive grandson about his. And yes, Mycen actually does a hell of a lot better at actually living like a commoner than Greil does, but I would still argue that "Mycen's grandson" alone would be enough to make Alm not really a commoner. And even if you discount Mycen's (potential) nobility, then there's also the part where his royal father arranged for him to be the ward of and receive personalised weapon training from one of the greatest knights of his generation. That's not something that just any random commoner gets. Right from the very start of the game, there's a separation between Alm and the rest of the Ram gang. He gets to start off in a promoted class while everyone else is still back in villager class (which is actually an advantage for them really since they can Dread Fighter loop, but shh). Agree with all of this. And I'll add that it's only because he's the son of Gawain (and to a lesser extent, that he keeps company with Titania) that Caineghis even gives him the time of day. If it had been (for instance) Shinon who had been in charge of the Greil Mercs when they first entered Gallia, I can only imagine that Caineghis would have said, essentially "OK, good job getting the princess this far; we'll take it from here". Byleth and Micaiah are very different. They probably have the best cases for being raised as commoners. Micaiah especially grew up with absolutely no rank or privilege of birth. Except that they both get literal magic powers as a result of their descent. I'd agree that the four that you mention are the closest to being commoners, but none of them really qualify entirely. Although. Radiant Dawn. Part 2 Chapter 1. For one glorious chapter, we get to play with Brom and Nephenee as our lords. Truly, the proper commoner lords that we all deserve. Joking aside, though, I actually would like to see a game with someone like Brom or Nephenee (or Donnel, or Mozu, etc.) as the main protagonist. Just some poor sod from the peasant class who gets dragged into things and has to struggle through as best they can. Question for anyone more familiar with Elibe lore than I am: is it ever stated if the position of chief is hereditary in the Sacae tribes? If the Lorca hadn't been wiped out, would Lyn have stood to take over the position when her father died, or would the next chief be appointed differently? Or does the question never come up?

Congratulations on finishing the run, especially given that Three Houses is your first Fire Emblem. Recruiting everyone is almost like a little extra challeng run stipulation to add on to the basic run. It's something that's only really worth doing for its own sake, not because it actually helps out. If the goal is just to complete the run, then it's definitely easier just to recruit the people you're going to use and the ones whose paralogues give useful items or battalions. Yeah, the early game is definitely one of the trickiest parts of a Maddening run. There's a difficulty spike at chapter 13 and another one for endgame, but by and large, once you're through the early game, you're through the worst of things. Once you've had the time to start acquiring the toolkit you need and the builds you're looking to run, things get a whole lot easier. Honestly, I tend to think that the reverse difficulty curve is one of the biggest weaknesses of the design of Maddening. My take away from this is less that Ignatz is a really good unit and more that Sniper is a really good class. Most units will function well as a delete button once you have Hunter's Volley and a full crit setup. And yeah, he definitely does have some stuff going for him (his personal, his high Dex and Luck growths, and his rallies), but I think it's the Sniper class that's doing most of the heavy lifting. I'd definitely agree that he's worth using in Verdant Wind where he's available in the early game and chapter 13, but he wouldn't be a high priority recruit for me in any other routes (especially since Shamir exists and can get to Hunter's Volley much quicker). I've run Falcon Knight Byleth before without much trouble. I think part of your problem was probably that you were trying to combine this with the recruit every last one of them run. If you don't need to do many sidetracks for recruitment, then going for a class line like Falcon Knight or Wyvern is fine. But if you are trying to recruit everyone, then probably best to leave her in Enlightened One. I am generally less high on Lysithea then many people are. Don't get me wrong, I still think she's a very good unit, just not a phenomenal one. Her weakest performance, as you point out, is in the very early game and the very late game. Which are typically some of the hardest parts of the game. Her strength is through the middle game, which (except for chapter 13) is often the easiest part of the game. And she is a worthy recipient of valuable resources like Thyrsus and the Sacred Galewind Shoes, but using them on her does tend to make her seem better than she is. She's still a good unit, though.

For Civ in particular, it's notable that the change from a square grid to a hex grid coincided with a complete overhaul of how combat in the series worked, with the switch over to one unit per tile. I'd also say that the change didn't go over entirely without a hitch. The launch version of Civ V was pretty damn mediocre; it only got good after various patches, expansions, and DLCs. And even now, at the end of the lifecycle of Civ VI, there are still some issues that haven't been addressed. The AI is still woefully bad at handling one unit per tile, for instance. So, with that in mind, my answer to the original question is that yes, it could probably be made to work, but that there would doubtless be teething problems along the way. So it certainly isn't something that I would like to see done just for the sake of doing it, but only if it's a coherent part of some larger overhaul.

I like this idea in theory, but how many times has Fire Emblem actually done this? The herons in Tellius definitely fit, since they had good lore/flavour reasons why they couldn't fight. But beyond that? Maybe Merlinus? But I don't think it would really hurt his character if he could swing a sword a bit, but was just very bad at it. Those are the only ones that I'm really thinking of immediately who have a reason why they can't ever fight. I'm also not sure how well this would work in a game where reclassing exists. They'd need to both ban the individual character from ever reclassing into a fighting class, and also ban other units from reclassing into the class. And that would work fine for something like a heron (or a dancer or some other equivalent), but I can't see it working for basic support classes like healers.

To really simplify animations, they could have the class sing instead of play instruments, and have different songs have different effects. Maybe learning new songs as they level up. Could have one to refresh, one to heal, maybe one to raise biorhythm or to fill a transform gauge? Nah, bad idea. Biorhythms and transform gauges were awful and shouldn't come back. On the subject of pure support classes, I'm somewhat ambivalent. My one big hope is that if they do exist, then they have a decent levelling curve that roughly keeps pace with combat units. I don't want support units that race off multiple levels ahead of everyone else, and I definitely don't want support units where you have to make sure that you are healing every single turn, even if it's only for 1hp, just to manage to stay five levels below everyone else.

Relationship status: It's complicated. People are weird and complicated and don't always fit neatly into boxes, and I like when fiction reflects that. The relationship between Micaiah and Sothe is the relationship between Micaiah and Sothe. It is sui generis. There are elements to it that resemble a parental relationship, a sibling relationship, a romance, and a friendship, but it isn't any of these things. It's its own thing.

Is anyone familiar with this glitch? [For the benefit of anyone doing a web search in future, it's a screenshot from Blazing Blade with the text "In rotta per la costa a sud di Caelin, they seek passage in the port of Badon."] I did a web search for it, and didn't find any mention of it. Which is unusual, because Fire Emblem glitches are normally very well documented, even minor inconsequential ones like this one. This is playing the European version of the game on Wii U virtual console, for what it's worth. And it's supposed to be in English but has the random Italian line that got in somehow (as opposed to being supposed to be in Italian but with a random English line). It doesn't really matter in the slightest, but I thought it was amusing, wanted to document it somewhere, and wondered if anyone knew anything more.

I don't like to use words like "deserve" and "should" for this sort of thing. Thinking in those terms tends to lead to either toxic entitlement or to the disappointment of over-inflated expectations. IS should make whatever game their developers are excited and enthusiastic to work on and that their business people think will sell. That said, the remakes that I would like to see the most are of Genealogy of the Holy War and Path of Radiance. The former because I've not played it, would like to, but generally don't do emulators. The latter because it's one of my favourites and I'd like for it to be more readily available so my friends can play it. And I do think that I'd prefer that any potential remake cover only a single game, rather than trying to cram two old games into one. I think that a smaller, tighter focus would be more likely to lead to a higher quality game. But even so, I'm pretty sure I'd be excited for any remake they care to make. Sacred Stones is one of my personal least favourite Fire Emblem games, but if they announced they were remaking it, I'd still end up counting the days until release.

Mixed feelings, but leaning more toward positive than negative. There's a lot that I like, but also a lot that I dislike. First, the good: I really enjoyed the voice acting. A lot of great performances which really added life to the character and the script. The presentation was, generally speaking, rather charming. I like (most of) the characters. The story is simple and straightforward, and sometimes that's exactly what I want. I like how gloriously imbalanced it is. There's so much ridiculous overpowered nonsense for both the player and the enemy, and it all somehow works out, in a "when everything is overpowered, nothing is overpowered" sort of way. I actually like the map design, for the most part. I like having stat boosters be at shrines rather than items, because that made me actually use them, as opposed to succumbing to my base hoarder instincts. And now the bad: A lot of story stuff is messed up. As Dark Holy Elf explained. The lack of a higher difficulty option really hurts the game. I think that it's the easiest that the hardest setting in a FE game has been this side of PoR international release. Too many bland skirmish fights. In dungeons, I was bad at avoiding them due to a combination of my being a klutz (there's a reason I mostly play turn-based games) and the poor camera and controls. Outside of dungeons, the map spawns made me want to avoid doing any of them side quests, because I didn't want to go back and forth any more than I absolutely had to and spawn more random crap on the map. The forging system is a mess. Weapon evolutions is a neat idea, but unless you're using a guide (or have memorised from previous playthroughs) then it's complete luck whether you get something great (eg, a killer bow) or something that's not even a clear upgrade over what you started with (eg, a rhomphaia). this is made worse since you can't even see a weapon's combat arts to begin with, so you're even more in the dark as to which evolutions are actually good/ And the gold and silver marks that you need are rare enough (outside of grinding) that you don't really have enough of them to just experiment with.

I don't want it to be a mainstay, and definitely think we could use a break after Fates and Three Houses, but I wouldn't mind it showing up from time to time. I would be wary of seeing more games where you (can or must) fight on multiple sides in the same conflict. To various extents, I have problems with how that ended up working out in Three Houses, Fates and also Radiant Dawn, which did it without a route split. But there's no reason why a route split has to be "which side of this conflict are you fighting on?" Instead it can be "how are you choosing to fight against this enemy?" which Sacred Stones and Gaiden/Echoes both played with to some degree.

I'd say probably Deen or Sonya here. Both are running with bandits and only join up with us when we destroy their gang. Shinnon would be my choice here, for the unrepentant racism. And also generally just being a jerk to everyone. Naesala is worse if we're only going by PoR characterisation, but he gets some justification in Radiant Dawn. And here, I'd say Jeritza. Murder, kidnap, blood lust, psychopathy, the works.

Oliver, from Radiant Dawn. Slaver, bigot, narcissist, corrupt politician.

If IS had wanted to do same sex relationships, it would have been easy enough for them to make it work. Adoption exists, and has existed since the ancient world. And the vast majority of inherited traits in the game are ones that are easily explained as being learned/cultural rather than genetic (I'm pretty sure there is not a gene for being a Pegasus Knight, for instance). And honestly, this is a fantasy world with magic, time travel, and people coming back from the dead. There's no reason they couldn't just have said that same-sex couples could use magic to have biological children, if they'd wanted to do so. The one thing that I think would have required more substantial change was the mechanics of having each child with a fixed mother but a variable father. That wouldn't work if same sex relationships were included. But even this is far from an unsolvable problem. There are plenty of other approaches that they could have taken that would have worked just as well. So let's not kid ourselves. The reason that there aren't more same-sex options for S supports is because IS (and/or Nintendo) didn't want there to be. Nothing more, nothing less. And look, I'm not going to say that every piece of media in existence has to cater to me, my tastes and my desires. They don't, obviously. If IS and Nintendo want to go full heteronormativity on every single thing they ever make, then that is absolutely their prerogative. And if you enjoyed that aspect of it, then great. Genuinely. I do not go in for the toxic "well, if I don't like it then nobody should be allowed to like it!" mentality. It's impossible to please all of the people all of the time. But I would be lying if I said that it didn't have an impact on my personal enjoyment and opinion of the game. Think of it this way: Awakening (and Fates) really leaned into the whole M/F shipping side of thing. And that is great for people who enjoy that, but not so good for people who don't enjoy it. (For whatever reason. Be they people who like M/M or F/F ships, people who are more interested in seeing platonic relationships than romantic ones, people who don't care about the characters and story and just want to get to the tactical combat as quickly as possible, etc.)

Also Rafiel, a Prince of Serenes in Radiant Dawn and Raphael, a himbo in Three Houses.

F-Zero is now a rhythm game. Act in time to the music to dodge and overtake other cars, hit boost pads, avoid hazards, etc. Different race tracks have different music tracks, and different race features could lead to different mechanical features to keep things fresh. Plus the option for other rhythm mini-games that are not in a car, but just feature Captain Falcon doing Captain Falcon things. Bejeweled is now a tactical, turn based stealth/heist game, which sees the player take control of an elite team of jewele thieves, pulling off ever bigger and more elaborate heists. California Games is now a visual novel and life sim. The games themselves are still there, but they're no longer the be all and end all, just a part of the life of the main characters. Matching the original game's release year, his would be set in 1987 California, and would heavily lean into the cultural aesthetic that that implies. Fire Emblem is now a dating and child-raising simulator, with an emphasis on making good matches that will give the best genes to the children of said matches. Wario Land is now a theme park sim game in which you must build up Wario Land to be the world's greatest theme park, while syphoning off as much of the profits as possible into your own personal bank account. Lemmings is now a puzzle platformer. You play as a lemming, and your job is to show that your species isn't actually terminally stupid, as you solve all the puzzles and don't walk off a cliff even once. I'll go the opposite direction. Guild Wars is now a roguelike deckbuilder, along the lines of Slay the Spire (or possibly more along the lines of Monster Train due to the dual class thing, but not as many people have heard of that). Fully leaning into the idea of build depth and interesting skill combinations, and dropping the RPG elements entirely. (Some of these were more serious than others.)

Awakening is... fine? There's very little about it that I love, but also not that much that I hate. It's just a good, solid, middle-of-the-pack Fire Emblem game. I know that in some ways it's thought of as being a collection of the greatest hits of the series up to that point, and in some ways I can see that. But a lot of the remixes just don't seem to be as good as the originals. A Tellius fan might see echoes of the laguz in the taguel, but they're not nearly as interesting or satisfying. A Sacred Stones fan might like travelling around the world map and fighting skirmishes to level up, but there's no equivalent of the Tower or Ruins, so isn't the original better? I've never played Genealogy, but my understanding is that the second generation there plays a vastly different role in how that game plays out (deliberately vague both to avoid spoilers and for my lack of familiarity), and that the Awakening kids won't really satisfy someone's nostalgia there. I think that Awakening's greatest strengths are rather where it was doing more of its own thing. The first big thing that Awakening did was to really embrace the casual audience. Not only by the continued inclusion of New Mystery's casual mode, but also by offering infinite grinding and the chance to reset character level and continue leveling indefinitely. Being able to bring in a bigger potential audience was massive for the series, and I am only ever going to be glad when a game gives its players more choices for how they want to engage with it. It also came up with a new skills system, with the skills being heavily tied to the reclassing mechanic, and the potential to come up with compelling builds for all characters. Variants on the same system have made their way to Fates and Three Houses and pretty much just feel standard by now, but Awakening was the innovator here. And honestly, I still can't decide whether I like it or not. Coming up with different skill builds is a lot of fun, and its very satisfying when a planned build finally starts to come together. That's the plus side. But the downside is that I don't really find the moment to moment gameplay to be all that much fun. Change character a to class b, stay in the class until they get skill z, then immediately switch to class c... it all feels a lot like busywork and can detract from the simplicity and immediacy of the tactical gameplay. I'm not sure I can think of any system that I'd like more, though, so overall it's probably a good thing. Then there's the pair up mechanic. Again, new in Awakening but it's become something of a staple (if we consider the adjutant system in Three Houses to be a continuation of the same basic idea). And honestly, I haven't really liked any of the implementations. Awakening's is overpowered, Fates' is over-fiddly, and Three Houses' is underwhelming. Still, I do like the idea behind it, even so. What else is there to say? The story was unremarkable, but generally inoffensive, and at least moderately engaging. The characters were fairly shallow, but entertaining and likeable enough that I actually cared when they died. Much the same could be said of most of the maps. There are very few standout memories of phenomenal maps, but very few that made me rage. They were solid. Decent. Fine. As for stuff I didn't enjoy, I'll say the children system and the concept of the outrealms. The children system felt like it warped the characters and supports around it too much. All characters had to be single. Every support chain had to have the possibility of ending with a romance. Supports between two male characters or two female characters became vanishingly rare. And the whole thing was far too heteronormative for my tastes. For outrealm, I just prefer that the different worlds of different FE games stay separate, as their own self-contained stories. I don't like the attempt to put together a single all-encompassing cosmology, and I don't like the weird crossovers. It's fairly easy to avoid, so it's not a major issue, but it still bugs me a little. But overall? Yeah, it was fine.

Has nobody said Tomas yet? That's the name of an archer in Archanea and a librarian in Fódlan.

For me personally: please no. I have the "must collect all the things" mentality/flaw that predatory game monetisation loves to target, so I am super careful with that sort of thing. I know that I'm susceptible to that sort of marketing, so I'm quite draconian with myself about staying the hell away. If I ever find myself wanting to buy game A just to get a few bits and pieces in game B (and I surely would in this case), then I will typically just stop playing game B entirely. The best way to resist temptation is to make sure you're nowhere near it. So, if they did add new characters like you suggest, then not only would that mean that I definitely won't buy Three Hopes (as opposed to only probably won't buy it otherwise), it would also probably mean that I would stop playing Three Houses, and that I wouldn't buy anything else Three Houses related in the future (whether that's DLC, merch, whatever). And I'd also be more wary of buying anything in this franchise in the future. If it were something relatively minor -- maybe a stat booster, or some rares seeds for the greenhouse, or something like that -- then I wouldn't care, but something relatively substantial like extra characters would be a big turn off for me. Although, if they did something like "here's a new DLC character pack that you can buy separately for [something relatively cheap] or alternatively you can get it for free if you buy Three Hopes" then I wouldn't have an issue with that. But that sort of cross-game promotional tie-in very rarely ends up with that sort of option. That said, I think that I am probably in the minority on this, and that they would probably end up making more extra sales than they would lose out from people like me. I do not think I am representative of hte playerbase as a whole. On the other hand, I'm also not certain that adding these would be as easy as you thing. Not technically, mind, but legally. I'm not sure of the exact wording of the agreement that followed the 2016-17 SAG-AFTRA strike, but I know that it included a provision about giving actors more information about the roles that they were working on. Just because they have the voice lines recorded doesn't necessarily mean that they have the legal right to just use them in any other project that they want to. I mean, they might do. I'm not a lawyer. But I would not be at all surprised if there would be IP rights involved that would make something like this complicated.

I'm not even sure the game itself knows sometimes. Just from the name, I'd assume it to be some sort of dressing for a wound. But then some games have flavour text referring to medicine or potion, which don't entirely preclude it being a dressing, but are somewhat odd choices of words if that's the intent. And then there's also the icons used across different games, some of which look like they're supposed to be applied topically, while others look more like they're supposed to be drunk. For instance, in Tellius, vulneraries and elixirs have very different icons, which would make me think that vulneraries are applied and elixirs are imbibed. Yet, in their (English) flavour text, both mention "consumed", which would make me think that both are taken orally. And then in Three Houses, both items have the same icon which looks more like it should be drunk, but both have descriptions saying they should be "used". If I had to come down one way or another, I'd say that they're applied. But I don't really think the games are consistent enough to make a meaningful judgement.

I don't remember the chapter by chapter events of that playthrough, so I can't say for certain, but I don't think it gave me any problems. The only chapter I recall having trouble with was the endgame, and that only because of losses I'd taken due to attrition. I was only playing on Hard, though, and ultimately, Birthright Hard just doesn't seem particularly challenging to a series veteran, even doing a sight-unseen ironman.

Long story short, I don't care for it. The narrative, characters, and world-building all left me completely cold. And while I can respect a lot of what they were trying for with the game mechanics and understand why others like them, they absolutely did not work for me. Plus myriad other minor annoyances with the UI, My Castle, the graphics... just lots of stuff that I didn't care for. Which isn't to say that I hated everything. There are a good few parts of Fates that I did like. Kinshi Knights, 1-2 range healing, the aesthetic of the theatre level, a lot of the music, and so on. Overall, I would characterise it as a deeply flawed game, but one that is full of ideas. But ultimately, not for me.