Topaz Light

In regards to the anime idea? Eh, I couldn't really care less either way. If it was good, I'd check it out, but otherwise... meh. In regards to the remake, though, I'd be down for one, although I think it should definitely have an "Original Mode" option that lets you play through basically just "FE7 HD" with no modifications whatsoever besides using the user interface elements and graphical style of the 3DS entries. Characters should be reillustrated, but their actual designs shouldn't be changed. Branching promotions might actually be neat to play around with in FE7, as long as nobody's original promotions were rendered unavailable. I'm fine with making Mark a player-controlled character as long as it's done tastefully and they don't commandeer the story and the credit for everything that happens. My answer to whether or not there should be a multiple generations mechanic is the same as the answer to the question of whether or not it'd be an FE6+7 remake compilation. I would actually love to see some inheritance mechanics going on for the children of FE7 characters in FE6, as well as some stat carryover for characters like Marcus, Merlinus, and Bartre. Adding some new characters you can get by pairing people up in FE7 before transferring data over would actually be pretty cool, but it is also true that FE6 is hardly hurting for recruitable characters.

Ahhh, yeah, I kinda figured, but I actually didn't know about the X button thing. Nevermind my statement about not being able to turn it off, then! (Shows what I know; I have never once actually used auto-battle in any Fire Emblem game that has it) Thanks! Somehow, it's both interesting and unsurprising that it'd end up being so uniform like that. I really appreciate the help!

In EarthBound Beginnings, buffs are useful pretty often in tougher fights. Haven't had much success with status ailments, but I hear some are situationally very useful (PSI-Block against Cerebrums, etc.). In EarthBound, Paralysis doesn't wear off over time (that I'm aware of), has a decent chance of success against most enemies, and completely shuts down anything physical that they could potentially do, although how helpful this is obviously depends on the enemy. Infamously, once you've inflicted Paralysis on Mondo Mole—and it's not hard to do—you've basically already won. In Mother 3, though, Defense Up Ω, Offense Down α, Duster's Scary Mask, and the occasional Shield or PSI Shield Ω were what got me through boss fights alive. Offense Up Ω and Defense Down α were pretty helpful, too. Final Fantasy IV DS was basically Cast Slow to Not Die for most boss fights. Pokémon, as has been mentioned, does have status moves—both buffing/debuffing and status ailments—as being pretty useful. Fire Emblem, as of Fates, has actually made debuffs and ailments pretty darn helpful. Can't tell you how many times I've used them to soften an enemy up from a distance before coming in for the kill. Honestly the main issue is that most RPGs make it so that every enemy a given status ailment would actually be useful against (i.e. Silence on a Magic-based enemy) is immune to that ailment, and with random encounters it's almost universally the case that it's just more efficient to smash your way past them with normal attacks.

Honestly Live-A-Live's combat isn't actually action-based at all. It can sorta give the illusion of being action-based due to how it doesn't tell you about technique charge times, or movement limits per turn, but it's all strictly governed by a turn-style, non-real-time system.

If you wanna learn Japanese to play games and stuff in their own original language, then that's just fine, you do you and all that, but it just makes you look haughty and annoying when you start insisting that everybody do so. Some people don't have the time to learn another language. For some people (like me) it's just not a big deal to them. Whatever way of enjoying something works best for you is fine, but it's not your place or anybody's to decide what works best for everyone. That's something each specific person has to choose for themselves. Also, you issued an imperative and then tried to justify it with your personal goals for your own experience with something. That doesn't work.

"Skinshipping" is in fact a real thing and is what the developers likened the feature to, being reportedly what it was based on. Of course, how much it was based on that and how much they just used that to justify its existence is still up for debate. It's also shorter than "the face-rubbing feature" and therefore quicker and more convenient to type.

Going to Sacred Stones next after Awakening and Fates would probably be a good way to sort of ease yourself into the older games. FE7 was the first released outside of Japan, though, and is also a perfectly-fine gateway title for getting into pre-Awakening Fire Emblem. It was my very first Fire Emblem game, in fact! One thing you should be aware of is that every Fire Emblem before New Mystery of the Emblem is all Classic mode, all the time; some games have Easy as a difficulty option, but Casual just doesn't exist. Just a heads-up! Sacred Stones and FE7 (just "Fire Emblem" outside of Japan) are both on the Wii U Virtual Console for $8.00 USD apiece! Or you could just dive headfirst into the deep end with Thracia 776 (you shouldn't dive headfirst into the deep end with Thracia 776)

What is the maximum deployment count for each route, separately? For the purposes of this question, consider all Child Paralogues to be part of all routes they're available in, although I don't know how much that would actually affect any of the numbers. The reason I want to know this is because I'm planning to do a random-team run through each route to motivate me to actually play through the entire game and I want to know how many team members to roll up. Also... @jonson: No, you can't, which is honestly a good thing; how would you turn it off in the case that you end up needing to resume manual control of your units?

I dunno if I'd really call Roy or SD!Marth weak, exactly... barring Roy's obscenely-late promotion, of course. For the most part, they're both "Just Average™" characters who the game comes about as close to forcing you to use as is mechanically-possible within the framework of the game engine. Because you can't really not use them (at least, not without basically giving up a unit slot in every single chapter), the fact that they aren't that fantastic stands out more, because you're not really able to opt out of using them like you can with other less-than-exceptional units. Of course, the fact that they're both Swordlocked doesn't do them any favors when the game starts breaking out the Lance-using enemies... which, in Shadow Dragon, starts in Chapter 4 and continues through to the end of the game. As for myself, I think that a Fire Emblem protagonist should by and large be good, but nowhere near godlike. That is, they should be a character you might want on your team even if you did have the choice not to use them, but not so strong that they're regularly rendering their companions irrelevant.

[spoiler=Reply to Feldsmarschall Rommel's post] Honestly, this makes absolutely no sense. Stands for nothing, I would buy, in the case of a particularly self-centered and/or nihilistic individual, but motivated by nothing just isn't how human beings are; everybody is motivated by something, even if it's something simple like enjoying the physical act of doing whatever they're doing, or an aversion to what would happen if they didn't do what they're doing. I'd say a better way of doing a morally-gray protagonist would be to have them be motivated by something more personal and less intrinsically-altruistic, and make a point to put them in situations where acting according to their primary personal motivation would come in conflict with doing the altruistic thing in that situation. A good example in Fire Emblem context would be a Lord who's out for their own nation and only their own nation, and who is willing to throw other countries under the bus when doing so would be more beneficial to them than helping those nations. [spoiler=Reply to Enigmar's post] I don't think you quite understand why people don't like Corrin. It's not because Corrin is morally- or intellectually-perfect; it's actually sort of the opposite. Corrin is very, very much not morally- or intellectually-perfect, and yet just about everyone in-universe treats them like they are—even the plot itself as a whole gets in on it. They make bad decisions that should have consequences, but don't. The rest of the cast's opinions of and reactions to Corrin are not on the same page as Corrin's actual actions and character traits. What people (including myself) want is a character with imperfections that are actually recognized as imperfections by the plot and the rest of the cast; that actually have the drawbacks and consequences one would expect them to have. Meanwhile, what Fates does is try to sell a very imperfect and frankly not especially likable individual as some perfect person that they are very glaringly not. At the very least, if you're gonna have a character the plot treats as morally-impeccable, have them actually be morally-impeccable. I want you to think of a character you really dislike. Now imagine everybody in their native story continually doing nothing but unironically singing that character's praises as though there wasn't a single thing wrong with them, and the writing being such that you were clearly intended to share that opinion of them. Sound pleasant? Imagine playing through one to three entire games with that going on, with that character as the main character. That's why people don't like Corrin. (With this in mind, an "anti-Corrin" would actually be a character who is more or less morally-impeccable, but who all the characters and the narrative itself treat as if they aren't.) Now then! As for what I'd like to see in a Fire Emblem Lord... Firstly, and most obviously, I want them to follow all the tenets of being a good character in general; consistent characterization, a believable blend of positive and negative traits, fleshed-out and meaningful relationships with other characters, their own personal feelings and opinions on what's going on in the world, etc. etc. Character development. I do generally want a main character who is, overall, a good person, at least by the time their character development is over. They don't have to be perfect, but it's hard for me to really get behind a main character who's not at least kind of a good person. However, I don't want the main character to be a perfect person, either. Like any good character, they should have flaws, and those flaws should affect how they interact with other people in the story. And, yes, their flaws should get them into trouble sometimes, and cause certain other characters to dislike them, openly or otherwise. As part of the aforementioned character development, they should overcome or at least mitigate some of their flaws. They should learn from the bad experiences their flaws bring upon them and grow and improve themselves as people. Honestly, the whole "young hero" thing really just isn't something that bothers me, personally. I wouldn't mind future Lords being in the same age bracket Fire Emblem Lords have always occupied; maybe a little older. If there is a significantly older Lord, though, their personality and actions should be adjusted appropriately. However, I would definitely like to see them play around more with the main character's background, and the circumstances under which they come into a position of command over their fighting force. Fire Emblem protagonists have been particularly homogeneous in this regard, and while I don't at all mind young heirs to reigning houses as main protagonists, I don't think that every Fire Emblem protagonist should be that. As far as weapon of choice goes, I'd love to see a main character who wields only Bows, Knives/Shuriken, Anima Magic, Dark Magic, or even Staves in their base class. Maybe getting a little specific, but please make their promotion something more interesting than Stat Caps +5, Movement +Horse, and/or Outfit Fanciness +3. Also, I really liked the plot-based Lord promotions of the pre-DS Fire Emblem games. Those were really cool and I greatly prefer them to having your Lord's promotion work just like any other character's. For appearance, I wanna state that I don't actually mind the whole "young blue-haired swordfighter" look... the problem is just that the series already has seven such characters among its main heroes; eight counting Kris's default appearances. (You can obviously customize Robin and Corrin to fit the mold, too, but that's not the default for either of them) (Also, for those wanting a comprehensive list: Marth, Sigurd, Seliph, Eirika, Ike, Chrom, and Lucina) I want the main character to have meaningful ties with characters who aren't part of their immediate travel group and/or social circle as of the start of the game, and I want those ties to be followed up on later in the game, sorta like how Marth was friends with Merric, who you didn't meet until Chapter 4. Stuff like that. I honestly want them to go back to having the main character's early-game personal weapon be separate from their late-game ultimate weapon. It honestly just feels a lot cooler if their unique legendary weapon is something they have to earn over the course of the story rather than something they just start with.

I'm almost 100% sure that the point is just "don't be anal about playing the game the 'optimal' way". Just because it's the way that's most effective doesn't mean it's the objective "correct" way to play the games; if that's the most fun way to play for you? Absolutely go for it! But don't chide other people for playing the game differently.

I wanna add onto this to say that matching an on-foot class with an incompatible weapon type will always result in them using the male Mercenary/Hero Sword animations for the weapon. Even if it's a Bow or a Tome. (It actually looks pretty cool with Lances!) I know that this is a joke image but it actually looks genuinely cool and the composition is pretty nice. ...More on topic, my personal preference would be to instead give each character their own unique body model for every class that they can be, but I understand that in Fates and Awakening, with so many characters who could potentially be almost any non-personal class in the game, it simply isn't feasible to do that. An easier alternative may be finding some way to automate personal outfit palette application, so they at least retain their outfit colors, or maybe something like giving each character unique body models for heavy armor, light armor, robes, and travel gear, and then having fancier promoted versions of those to use for second-tier classes, for a total of eight or so body models per character. Part of the fun of class systems for me is always seeing what characters look like in the different outfits of each class—something that no doubt stems from Final Fantasy III being one of my first experiences with a class-changing system—so I can't really completely relate to this specific grievance, I'm afraid, but having the option would be kinda nice. Honestly, I just wish the class outfits in 3DSFE were better. Especially the heavily-armored ones.

So, I noticed there were a lot of threads about favorite class and what not, but not a whole lot that touch on broader weapon types, so I made one myself! There are separate polls for favorite physical weapon type, favorite magic school, and favorite Anima magic element. Your favorites can be chosen for any reason, whether it's due to how good the weapon type is, a particular affection for a character (or multiple characters) who use that weapon type, or just plain thinking it's cool. (The "Other / Miscellaneous" choice under "favorite Anima element" is there to account for spells like Gaiden's Arrow spell which aren't really Light or Dark magic but which don't really clearly belong to any of the four established Anima elements, either) As for myself, I think my personal favorite weapon type is probably actually Knives/Shuriken, as of Fates. It really did a good job of making them something interesting, fresh, and actually fun and worthwhile to use. My favorite magic school is probably a bit of a toss-up between Anima, for its trustiness and cool, pretty aesthetic, and Dark, for its varied and gimmicky nature. I think Dark might win out just a little bit overall, though. Favorite Anima magic element is Ice, mostly due to the novelty of it. The spells are few and far between, but they are there, and I always it pretty cool whenever they show up.

Honestly, I'm afraid to say that I'm pretty squarely in the camp of disliking both Awakening and Fates (for some of the same and some different reasons), so I can't really relate to this specific grievance. I can, however, relate on a more general level to not enjoying seeing games that I personally like get relentlessly trash-talked; I'm pretty much an EarthBound Beginnings/MOTHER 1 megafan, and let me tell you, the majority of the MOTHER fanbase does not make that a fun "Favorite Game in the Series" to have... although thankfully there are no ad hominem attacks towards people over it, that I've seen or experienced, anyway. For the most part, I'm just gonna have to echo the sentiments that, yeah, it can suck and be disheartening to hear people hollering indictments of things that you like, but those people have just as much right to their opinions as you do to yours, and just as much right to voice their opinions as you do to voice yours. It is, however, very inappropriate and rude for them to continually blather on about their hatred in contexts in which it's not relevant or asked for. [spoiler=If you wanna know if there's anything I like about Awakening and Fates...] I think the sleek user interface, the feel of the controls, etc. is far and away the best the series has seen yet, no contest. It makes it fast and easy to move characters around, perform various actions, etc., and little things like the ability to turn off the grid, or turn off Staff/Dance/etc. animations but not combat animations are definitely much appreciated. I have to admit, I was a bit iffy about it at first, but I've come to really like the whole "Map Theme, Map Theme (Ablaze)" format for doing regular battle themes. It narrows the divide between combat and map movement, and definitely contributes to the feeling of combat engagements being just one part of a larger battle. In as much as I criticize Fates, I think how it handled the Weapon Triangle was actually a really good idea, although it does sacrifice the occasional situational benefits of having WTA-neutral weaponry. I also have to appreciate how well it lends itself to the potential return of Light and Dark magic as their own entirely-distinct magic schools; Anima's already Red, so just make Dark magic Blue, make Light magic Green, and presto! Another really good thing Fates did, as far as weapons are concerned, is that it applied the necessary tweaks and buffs to Knives to make them actually relevant, distinct, and worth using—and even having exist in the series at all, for that matter—as their own weapon type. Fates singlehandedly brought Knives up from one of my least favorite weapon types to one of my favorites. As much as I'm not personally (and I cannot stress enough how subjective this is) a huge fan of how Awakening and Fates handle the distribution, acquisition, etc. of Skills, I have to admit that Fates introduces some of the coolest, most interesting, and most creative Skills in the series. The ratio of cool, interesting, and distinct Skills to bland drivel like the "Stat +#" Skills is much more in favor of the former in Fates compared to Awakening, and that's absolutely a good thing in my book. Discounting classes that are just new names on old classes (Samurai and Strategist, for example, are not Fates-original classes), I honestly like pretty much every truly new class that Awakening and Fates introduced. War Cleric/Monk is such a fun, novel idea. I love the plethora of stylish new classes Hoshido brought to the table, and I love how Awakening and especially Fates played around more with weapon access combinations and mixed physical+magical classes. Corrin's personal classes are all really nifty ideas, even if the female outfits for those classes are kinda... erm... Thank you, Fire Emblem Fates, for finally, finally, finally giving Archers the buff they so desperately needed, after 25 years.

Get a Pokémon with Thief/Covet Go to a place where wild Cubone appear Find a Cubone Use Thief/Covet If the Cubone hasn't fainted, then flee, regardless of the results of Thief/Covet (there is no element of randomness to Thief/Covet's success besides whether or not it hits) If you received a Thick Club, remove it to vacate the Pokémon's held item slot Repeat until you have as many Thick Clubs as you want You can do this for any held item that you can only get from wild Pokémon.

You forgot every single Archanea character, Gray, FE2!Robin, Cliff, Sevr, FE2!Kamui, Atlas, Jesse, Deen, Ayra, Holyn, Shanan, Radney, Roddlevan, Larcei, Ulster, Eyvel, Machua, Mareeta, Shanam, Rutger, Fir, Karel, Karla, Ismaire, Mia, Zihark, Stefan, Lucia, Edward, Robin, Sully, Stahl, Gaius, Gregor, Olivia, Say'ri, Yen'fay, Priam, Lucina, Inigo, Brady, Kjelle, Cynthia, Severa, Gerome, Yarne, Laurent, Noire, Nah, Morgan, every single first- and second-generation recruitable Fire Emblem Fates character, and Ippei. My personal subjective favorites are probably Radd, Athena, and Guy, but I fully acknowledge that none of them really represent the best of their class. As far as power goes, Rutger, Zihark, and Lon'qu are no slouches, and I distinctly remember Stefan being pretty beastly, too. Of course, the kids in Awakening are all darned strong, as well.

I would be actual money that they won't. This isn't the first time they've had a feminine-looking starter—the entire Chikorita and Fennekin lines come to mind—and that has never been a reason for them to eschew the Standard Starter Pokémon Gender Ratio in the past. Besides, gender roles are silly and arbitrary, anyway, and if it's really that important to you that your Popplio be female due to the appearance of its final evolution, well, there's always soft resetting. Anyway, as for myself, my personal Favoritism Tier List for the starters' final evolutions is as follows: Popplio Rowlet Litten Popplio's is by far my favorite, which definitely has absolutely nothing to do with my blatant favoritism for cute/pretty/soft-looking appearances/designs. Assuming it's legitimate, it's pretty much solidified my choice to pick Popplio. Rowlet's...is pretty cool. I'm not super sure how I feel about this new apparent "trend" of basing starter Pokémon off of RPG classes (Warrior/Mage/Ninja, now Archer/Monk/Dancer apparently), but this time it resulted in something pretty neat-looking. All complaints about getting a potential fourth Fire/Fighting starter aside, I legitimately just don't think Litten's final evolution has a good character design. It just doesn't...look good. Or particularly aesthetically-congruent with Litten's design outside of color palette and both of them being feline-based. Maybe the middle evolution will reconcile them somehow, but it's still a disappointing final stage. So masculine Seriously, though, I doubt it. Popplio's design is really perfectly gender-neutral, and the only reason I'd imagine it'd come off as masculine is because male is sort of the default assumption in the absence of a specified gender or any gender-associated appearance traits. Besides, it's really a trivial and petty thing to take issue with, anyhow.

Feel free to ignore this if you've played the game before, but EarthBound Beginnings/Mother 1 is positively bite-sized by RPG standards if you know what to do, or if you're playing this patch that fixes the wonky difficulty curve and greatly mitigates the amount of grinding required to finish the game.

My thoughts on it are a little complex. Firstly, I am strongly against meaningless changes to anything of significance. I think it's bad to alter the main plot, the characters (at least the plot-important ones), etc. too much. Stuff like Final Fantasy IV SNES's removal of certain unique character abilities in order to simplify (read: dumb down) the gameplay is also something I consider to be detrimental. Basically, don't cut/modify main story stuff (unless the modifications are at the request of the original writer(s)), and don't cut/modify the main gameplay outside of, like, bugfixes and stuff. However, I do not object to tasteless content being omitted from games. For example, I feel like it was the right call to change the MaMU/Soleil supports in the way that they did, and I'm also frankly glad that skinshipping was removed from the game. On a more general note, removing sexualization of minors is another thing I'll never object to, because frankly that sort of content is disgusting and shouldn't have been in the original game to begin with. I suppose what it really boils down to how important the cut content is to the experience, and whether or not it's something that I consider to be in poor taste, or an embarrassing/uncomfortably-blatant kind of fanservice. Skinshipping, I don't at all might the removal of because all the practical functions it served were retained, and the "minigame" itself is frankly the sort of thing that would make me embarrassed to tell people that I like Fire Emblem (which is something that Fates still manages to border on doing even without it). Also, I think people make way too big a deal out of comparatively minor changes. I can honestly live without certain minor things that were in the Japanese version of a game as long as nothing significant was cut. Now, if they're cutting things like sidequests, optional party members, nonoptional party members, important story information, entire plot arcs/routes, etc., then I'll have a problem, but if it's just removing tiny, insignificant things like particularly skimpy optional outfits on characters? Eh, not something I'm gonna miss.

EarthBound Beginnings/MOTHER, probably. At this point, I've finished the game something like seven times, probably, so now I'm kinda doing some playthroughs just to screw around and test different things. I should make it a point to try and clear the game with each of the five possible endgame party configurations at some point; I've always kinda wanted to try doing that. The configurations that fall short of being a full party are gonna be rough, though, especially the Ninten solo.

Hmm... alright! I'm gonna be assuming I don't get to make up new classes for any characters, and I'll skipping over characters I can't really fit into Fire Emblem classes. These classes will be chosen based almost entirely on how well the functionality of the class matches up with the abilities of the character in question within their own native game! (In order to avoid spoilers, the true names of certain characters may not be used!) [spoiler=EarthBound Beginnings/MOTHER]Ninten — War Monk (comes with a Club rather than an Axe) Ana — Mage → Sage Lloyd — Either Ballistician, or Apothecary → Mechanist Teddy — FE3!Berserker Swordmaster but with Berserker stats Hero Pippi — an Apothecary with good bases, absurd physical growths, and Point Blank who just completely obliterates everything The Garrickson Baby — Pupil (level 1) [main antagonist] — The glass-cannoniest Sorcerer you can imagine (assuming he doesn't have his protective measures in place. Taking the sequel into account, he may also have both Counter and Magic Counter) [spoiler=EarthBound/MOTHER 2]Ness — War Monk (comes with a Club rather than an Axe) Paula Polestar — Dark Mage → Sorcerer (FE3DS) Jeff Andonuts — Either Ballistician, or Ninja → Mechanist Poo — Mage Fighter Porky Minch — Apothecary → Mechanist [spoiler=MOTHER 3]Lucas — Villager → Great Master (somehow; slow, tanky, and comes equipped with a Stick) Kumatora — Mage → Sage Duster — Ninja → Master Ninja Boney — Perpetually-transformed Wolf Laguz (super speedy!) Flint — Villager → Master of Arms (but really bulky and strong) Claus — Villager (FE2) pre-timeskip, Grandmaster post-timeskip Hinawa — Civilian Salsa — Dancer, weakness and fragility and all Fassad — Merchant early on, Sage when you're actually fighting him King P — Mechanist but his puppet is really big and he rides inside it Every Magypsy — NPC Sages strong enough to solo the whole map but who infuriatingly just sit there doing nothing but occasionally using those super-weak joke healing staves on your party members [spoiler=Final Fantasy IV]Cecil Harvey — Ironically, a very tanky, physical-slanted War Monk Kain Highwind — Soldier/Spear Fighter → Halberdier/Spear Master; Great Master after becoming a Holy Dragoon Rydia — Is "Summoner but with Anima instead of Dark" an option? Tellah — Sage Edward Chris von Muir — Bard Rosa Joanna Farrell — Shrine Maiden → Priestess (FE14) Palom — Mage → Sage Porom — Cleric → Bishop Edge Geraldine — Ninja → Master Ninja Fusoya — Archsage Golbez — The bulkiest Sorcerer you can imagine [spoiler=Final Fantasy VI]Terra Branford — Mage Fighter, Manakete, or Nohr Noble Locke Cole — Thief → Trickster Celes Chere — Mage Fighter Shadow — Ninja → Master Ninja Cyan Garamonde — Armor Sword → General (Sword-specialized) Setzer Gabbiani — Physical-slanted Butler Strago Magus — Druid/Sorcerer (because Blue and Dark Magic are both gimmick-based) Relm Arrowny — Diviner → Onmyoji Umaro — Brigand/Barbarian → Berserker Gogo — Freelancer/Chameleon Kefka Palazzo — Druid/Sorcerer [spoiler=Final Fantasy VII]Cloud Strife — Mercenary → Bow Knight (because horses = motorcycles or something; I dunno) Aerith Gainsborough — Diviner → Onmyoji Red XIII — An always-transformed Beast Laguz of some sort? Yuffie Kisaragi — Ninja → Master Ninja Vincent Valentine — Sniper, or Bow-specialized Assassin Sephiroth — Grandmaster or Mage Fighter [spoiler=Chrono Trigger]Crono — Myrmidon → Swordmaster (shifts over to the Tactician → Grandmaster class line after learning magic) Marle — Shrine Maiden → Priestess (FE14) Lucca — Apothecary → Mechanist Frog — Mercenary → Hero (becomes Mage Fighter after learning magic) Ayla — Brigand/Barbarian → Berserker (Even though she's technically an unarmed brawler; it fits thematically) Magus — Druid/Sorcerer [spoiler=Tales of Phantasia]Cress Albane — Knight (FE1) → Great Knight (Sword-specialized all the way) Chester Burklight — Archer → Sniper Mint Adenade — Cleric → Bishop Claus/Klarth F. Lester — Diviner → Onmyoji Arche Klein — Dark Flier/Falcon (very magic-focused) Suzu Fujibayashi — Ninja → Master Ninja [spoiler=Tales of the Abyss]Luke fon Fabre — Lord Tear Grants — Shaman/Dark Mage → Druid/Sorcerer (FEDS) Jade Curtiss — Basara Guy Cecil — Myrmidon → Swordmaster Natalia Luzu Kimlasca-Lanvaldear — Archer → Priestess (FE14) (Somehow. She'll make it work) Asch the Bloody — Tactician → Grandmaster Master Van — Grandmaster

So, I voted for the "yes" option, not because I think Fire Emblem is screwed financially (it demonstrably isn't; the franchise is more profitable now than it's ever been), but because it's managed to kill the majority of my interest in it. The 3DS Fire Emblem games are honestly very quickly moving away from what I want in a Fire Emblem game. They're not necessarily bad games, but as of Fates, I feel comfortable saying that I do not think modern Fire Emblem is really the quite same series I originally fell in love with anymore. I'm going to be honest, while I do fall into the camp of strongly disliking the increased focus on fanservice and the insistence on trying to sell some of the worst-written protagonists ever as "customizable characters" just because you can customize their appearance, stats, and name (the latter of which not even being remotely unusual for JRPG protagonists), I also have more specific issues with the way the games are set up that I haven't really seen people talk about much. I guess the biggest thing that really irks me is how there are a lot fewer significant things that you have to earn in order to get, particularly recruitable characters. In games prior to Awakening and Fates, there was a significant portion of recruitable characters who you actually had to go out of your way to recruit, even if getting them wasn't particularly hard if you knew how to go about it. In Awakening, and even moreso in Fates, the majority of the recruitable characters in the game are simply handed to you once you reach that point in the story. There are still some characters you need to work to recruit, to be fair, but they're pretty few and far between. What's more, the vast majority of party members, especially in Fates, are already in your faction before they join you, and their joining up is basically just them joining your specific group, not your faction as a whole. (Not that there were no characters in older Fire Emblem games who were like this, but a much higher percentage of Awakening's and especially Fates' are by comparison). Doing it this way honestly kinda stunts the variety of perspectives among the main party, and it's a lot less interesting to have all these characters' recruitments into your army take place before the game even starts than it is to have the first encounters with them take place during the story itself. Additionally, making the player's supply of literally every expendable item in the game effectively bottomless essentially kills any sort of rarity or coolness factor certain items may once have had. Hammerne no longer feels significant to get because you can just pick up more from traveling merchants later. Rare items like Tomahawks, Spears, magic swords, those oddball gimmick weapons, etc. are also infinite in supply, to the same sort of effect. I can at least applaud Fates for just cutting the financial middleman and making all weapons and tomes unbreakable. Kind of a more minor thing, and I absolutely don't want to say that Intelligent Systems should be trapped into always making the S-ranked weapons somehow plot-relevant, but I do greatly prefer when they have at least some relevance to the world and its cultures as opposed to just kinda existing and being one-of-a-kind without any actual explanation for it at all. As far as characterization goes, it's not as much the level of characterization that bothers me as it is the style of characterization. We know plenty about the personalities of the 3DSFE party members; the writers made sure of that. Now, before I get into this, I have to state upfront, I don't mind silly, comedic moments or scenes! In fact, I really like them, provided they're clever, well-timed, and in good taste. What I do mind is that that's the majority of the supports in 3DSFE. I had a whole thing typed up to go after this, but I realized it was actually a bit beside the point; the point being that almost all of your party members in 3DSFE are essentially living in a vacuum that's completely partitioned off from the world you go adventuring in during the main story. All their backstory events are only vaguely elaborated on and only rarely do they actually intertwine with one another's (although they do sometimes! Azura and Arthur's supports come to mind), or with anything in the main story. Previous Fire Emblem games had characters like: Azel, the half-brother of Arvis, who's a major nonrecruitable character in the story Lewyn, the wayward prince of Silesse Renault, a mysterious holy man with a lengthy history that ties him to several other characters, including the main antagonist himself Shinon and Gatrie, who actually leave your party at one point due to a falling-out over the mercenary company's direction, and each turn up later in the story at different points Jill, a Wyvern Rider who only reluctantly sides with the main party and struggles with fighting against her homeland, potentially even returning to it should you attempt to pit her against her father Meanwhile, very few secondary characters in the 3DSFE titles have any sort of ties whatsoever to anything that happens in the main story, and it makes them way less interesting and compelling. In my opinion, at least, it's impossible to really develop characters well in a vacuum; they need a world in which to exist, and form relationships, and opinions, and a history. 3DSFE's approach to these things—except relationships, which are usually done so badly it might actually be worse than just vague minimalism—is unjustifiably minimalistic and vague, considering they now have the data space to do an even better job of it than earlier FEs ever have. Finally, what the hell happened to the between-chapters narration? Seriously, that added a lot more to the worldbuilding and mood of the story than I gave it credit for at first. Bring it back.

Cavalier -> Dracoknight Roshea

I dunno how much this is worth, but when I was writing up poorly-thought-out plans to remake Gaiden, I had Zeke's name as "Ezekiel" (the name Zeke is short for, because Zeke sounds way more like the name of a Californian surfer dude or a jerk jock than a noble knight). I understand that's diverging a bit more than just calling him Sieg, but I also do agree that the basis on which the use of Sieg was argued for was a poor one.

All I can think of is that it might be something similar to how Cynthia's map sprite hair color appears distorted with some fathers in Fire Emblem Awakening; it's gray as opposed to white with Henry, and brownish as opposed to orange with Gaius. Since this is an isolated instance with a character who otherwise doesn't really have that problem, though, I feel like it's probably something else.