Kirie

For some reason http://serenesforest.net/fe4/ does not bring you to the main Genealogy of the Holy War page like the other FEX pages, but instead redirects you to the FE4 Playing Guide.

The plot was very weak and the characterization sorely lacking. I would have loved to see a focus on less characters (so many characters!) with more attention given to them and the plot/setting rather than time spent gaining more characters. Different win conditions for maps would have been wonderful as well. I never really liked the whole "let's toss in characters from previous games to be playable for no real reason," but that's easy enough to ignore, just like it's easy enough to ignore the less-than-desirable parts of the fanbase (though you get that with everything and I personally haven't seen it any worse for FE:A than other games) That said, I still enjoy the game a lot and I certainly don't hate it.

FE7 was my first game, so I had the nice forced tutorial to teach me the basics. As soon as I started Eliwood's mode and saw Marcus get like 2 EXP for a kill I went "hell no" and benched him, not really understanding the principles behind it but just feeling instinctively that that was a Bad Thing because numbers. I did a lot of restarting to keep people alive, only losing Erk in the last chapter because I was sick of restarting and wanted to finish the damn game. I've obviously improved a lot since then, but I don't think I did too badly.

I've only ever allowed 2 deaths: The first time I ever played an FE game was FE7 and I I let Erk die in the very last chapter because I didn't feel like restarting. I also let Fiona die in one chapter of FE10 because it was really annoying and I was sick of restarting and I thought she was forced in that level for some reason (even though she wasn't) so I "couldn't" just swap her out for a better character and didn't plan on using her anyway. Otherwise, I've always restarted. I guess it says something that I remember the 2 deaths that I've allowed even though my memory is terrible and I can't even remember what I had for dinner yesterday.

A few that I think fit well and haven't been mentioned yet that I've seen (based on the OP and skimming through the rest of the thread): Lemina of Lunar 2: Eternal Blue: Has her own story arc and motivations surrounding maintaining and reviving her family's legacy (a magic school that has run into disrepute), and a good amount of character growth. Not overly sexualized, nor prey to any typical female tropes. I would argue that Jean of the same game also fits, except that for the first half of the game (and in almost all of her given artwork) she is stuck in a rather sexualized outfit (though this does change at a very plot-relevant moment). However, she has some amazing character growth and plot and is a fun and positive female character. Miku Hinasaki of Fatal Frame/Zero: Goes on an adventure to find her missing brother and in the process learns how to exorcise ghosts and solves a mystery. Pretty badass, and definitely not overly feminized or sexualized. Her character loses some of her strength and vitality in later games, but in the original for sure, she is definitely a strong female protagonist. Mio Amakura of the sequel, Crimson Butterfly, also fits as a well-made female protagonist for similar reasons, though Miku gets more points for being the original, I believe. Like Miku, Mio falls prey to losing some of her strength in later games, which is a shame.

I've married the avatar to Chrom in every playthrough I've done so far, not because I'm in love with him or anything, but because it's easy. >.> My very first playthrough we got to S supports super quickly just from fighting next to each other and the tradition has always continued. So, I guess I haven't married for love or for stats, except for my current Lunatic run where I did marry Chrom/Avatar on purpose. However, I do plan on marrying Gaius soon in my next silly-mode run, since he's my favourite of all the male characters.

I really enjoy Lunatic mode. It's basically perfect for me; a nice blend of difficulty and thinking while still giving you freedom to do silly things with classes/pairings/challenges/whatever. I appreciate Lunatic+ on paper and I think it's well designed from what I've seen, read about, heard from friends, etc., but I don't plan on playing it myself anytime soon, if at all.

I legitimately enjoy the Indigo League and Orange Islands series. They were a lot of fun to watch and the show's tropes and such were cute and silly and fun. I didn't watch anything from Johto through Sinnoh, though I watched a few episodes of Best Wishes for the sake of writing episode summaries for a website and I felt the season was fairly awful from what I saw and had no notion to watch it further. I did get roped into watching XY, and that at least has been amusing from what I've seen so far. Having the silly Kojiro/Musashi back is the best part, really. I've kind of tapered off watching it (I haven't seen any new episodes since Corni split from the group), but I'll probably pick it back up again at some point when I feel like watching something silly and unserious.

I actually think it would be more appropriate in an Awakening prequel to see a Plegian royal as the MC fighting against Chrom's dad as the end-game villain and tossing in Gangrel as a Julian-archetype with connections to other characters to showcase his slide into madness. There are a tonne of interesting slants they could put to a game like that, especially regarding Plegia's connection to Grima and the Grimleal, and also maybe flesh out the world and mythology a bit. Even Emmeryn admits that the stuff her father did was whacked and wrong, so it seems weird that they would make him a hero of a game, unless it went back even further before the Crusades and dealt with an entirely new storyline. In terms of the actual topic, well, I wouldn't expect an actual real FE game to be made with someone like Owain as the main character. Maybe something in the vein of the Tingle spin-off that's something of a joke/parody, but not a legitimate game.

I prefer baking over cooking, but being a housewife means I do all of the cooking for us, too, and I'd like to think I've gotten pretty good at it. Despite my baking preferences, I actually don't really care for meals made in the oven too much; it's a lot of set and wait and less opportunity for trying new things and testing and balancing flavours while you cook. So, I do a lot of stove-top cooking, but because I'm also lazy, I tend to prefer meals that I can make in one pan, like stirfries and risotto. My rice cooker and air fryer are also my favourite accessory appliances and are great for healthier cooking. While both of those also have the "set and wait" mentality, they're more used for side things (rice, potatos, steamed veggies, etc.) than the main portion of a meal, like most oven-dishes tend to be. My favourite baking is definitely a family cookie recipe that I always make at least once a year. It makes a huge batch of cookies, but it's great for sharing and passing around, especially for holidays and parties.

I've done a decent amount of cosplay in my many years of attending conventions. Digiko of DigiCharat, Miwako of Paradise Kiss, Franciska von Karma of Ace Attorney, and Terezi from Homestuck. Would love to do more, but there aren't really a lot of conventions over here. Maybe someday.

I've never used any of the SpotPass characters, Say'ri, Tiki, Basilio, or Flavia. And until my current Lunatic run, I've also never used Donnel, Vaike, Kellam, Gregor, or any of the kids aside form Lucina and Inigo. I rarely use Virion and Cherche, and only used Inigo and Anna once.

Czar, love the crazy backstory you made up. So perfect. I'm going to combine that with my other headcanon to make the plot of this game not suck so hard. As much as I love Awakening, it does have serious plot flaws. Aside from the plot, the lack of feet is definitely the worst flaw.

Weapon Triangle Advantage. As in, how Swords get a bonus against Axe users, but Lances get it against Swords, etc.

Gaius/Tharja and Stahl/Sully for me. The first is just very cute and oddly fitting and has happened every I've played so far. The second just seems to keep happening even when I don't want it to; I guess they just work well together and want to be together. I've become fond of Henry/Sumia, too, but that's more of a recent thing.

Overall, I think I would give FE8 my pick. It's not my #1 pick in any individual category except maybe battle sprites, but overall it has a good aesthetic flow and there are no elements that are displeasing. In general, I like the style of the GBA games the best as a whole (I'm a sucker for sprites) and the darkness of FE8 pulls it up over the brighter, cheerier look of Fe6 and FE7. For face sprites, FE10 gets my pick. I love the direction they went in with all of the characters and the details were great. Everyone looks unique and shown in a good light, and the quality is nice and high. I really dislike the 3D animation in the game, though. For 3D animation, the prize definitely goes to Awakening, which actually has decent looking 3D models that don't make me ill. FE13 also gets the music prize, because music counts towards aesthetics, right? While I generally like almost akll of the music in FE, I think FE13 has the most memorable music. For maps and scenery design, FE4 for sure. Those huge maps. <3 But the face sprites and animations look so derpy that I have a hard time awarding it points anywhere else.

I have a lot of mechanics that I like, but my overall favourite would probably have to be Skills. The best thing about Skills are that they make characters stand apart in combat moreso than just what class they are, and they open up a lot more options for play. I loved playing around with skills in FE10 and FE13 (didn't much in FE4).

I've never used Nino and I don't plan to. In short, she's simply too much work in too short a time for too little reward (others have already gone into this in detail, so I won't bother). If I need another magic user late-game (if Erk got screwed or whatever), I'll turn to Pent, who is already solid and dependable when you get him and doesn't need any babying, but usually I don't bother with either of them since my team tends to already be good enough by then.

Finally started my Luna run over the weekend and managed to beat levels 1-4, Donnel's sidequest, and one of the Risen popup levels as well. C2 was about as bad as I expected it would be (I didn't even bother counting my resets), but had a surprisingly hard time dealing with the upper portion of C3 (though I quickly developed an easy strat for the bottom). I ended up beating that one by basically luring them all down one side with Freddie into a chase that strung them out enough for the rest my group to take out in a round, an ambush situation of sorts. I know that I'm not the best at these games and that there are probably far better strategies for me to have used to get past those initial levels, but I'm glad that I got it past, and I actually had a lot of fun with it, too. I'm definitely glad to have access to setting up and purchasing things and whatever I need to, though.

Pokémon. Not just the games (though I have plenty of those), but I have a good collection of Pokémon cards (I still collect them in Japanese), plushes, and a few figures. Hard to judge the total amount, but easily over $1000. Next up is probably Fire Emblem, since the Fire Emblem 3DSXL counts under this category (and that was €220 or so?). I've also purchased all the English-released games (including taking a hit for buying PoR only a few years ago), though I don't have much FE merchandise, except for my Ike plushie. So, a few hundred, with the 3DSXL taking the biggest brunt of that. Third place would be the Lunar series. I bought the "fancy" edition of both PS1 versions of the games, the Sega CD versions, and the GBA remake (though not the DS Lunar Knights or whatever). I also bought the super awesome game manual for the PS1 Eternal Blue and the matching poster. Like Fire Emblem, I paid a premium getting the PS1 SSS in the after market, but even if you were to add the cost of the Sega CD console, this doesn't quite overtake FE expenditures, though it's close. For my husband, it's Zelda for sure. He's not much of a merchandise person, but he's bought every Zelda game that's been released in Europe (with the exception of the OoT 3DS remake), and some multiple times (like getting Majora's Mask on virtual console).

I have a silly habit where I tend to not use avatars related to the site that I'm on. I don't think I've ever used an FE avatar here, but I do on my other sites, etc. It's not a firm rule, just kind of an amusing happenstance. In this specific instance, my avatar is a cute fanart of the character that my username is an homage to: Kirie of the first Fatal Frame/Zero. I was actually thinking about changing my display name here since I don't really use this name much anymore, but instead I just decided to embrace the Kirie and added the avatar on instead, replacing my old one which was some kind of Pokémon thing, I think.

I would imagine so. Most parents of adopted children talk to their children about it at some point or another, though usually not at such a young age as Amy is in-game.

I've already got my pairs worked out and Chrom's with FeMU so Chrom!Inigo's not an option, but the Nah bit is tempting. I didn't think you could get Mire that soon, but looking at the locations list on the main site, it seems you can buy them from some of the SpotPass teams (aside from getting the bonus Paralogues, I've not really dabbled with SpotPass at all). I can likely work up enough extra units to survive that, especially since I'll have a relatively strong Chrom/MU pair by then for Lucina's recruiting.

I really loved the 3rd classes available in Radiant Dawn. I hope that someday we'll get another FE with a long enough story mode to accommodate that again. It would probably not work well with reclassing and branched promotions (there would simply be too many options), but I just thought it was really awesome, like D&D prestige classes, and we don't need to always have reclassing and such in every other game again, too.