Which FEs have the best and worst character design, in your opinion?

[Etrurian emperor]

2 hours ago, ARMADS!!! said:

Woke: Make Shannan x Oifrey an option (but seriously, these two should have a paired ending - whether romantic, platonic, ambiguous, or whatever- in a remake, they were friends for some 20 years and went throught a lot together, also in virtue of letting both have more than one ending (that isn't creepy), c'mon, even if the ending is just "they kept being friends and exchanged letters sometimes!")

I kinda like that. They did raise a child together after all. Also most of the females are decades younger and some of them were even raised by them(or are their cousin!) so having an alternative to that would be welcome. 

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

On 2/22/2024 at 2:32 AM, Jotari said:

It'd also be just plain fun to have a female lord who is just so dominant in gameplay in a way that none of the female non Avatar lords are (and few female characters in general that aren't cute dragon girls).

Camilla > Edelgard.

Her canon class, if there is such a thing in Fates can even use magic!

[Eltosian Kadath]

21 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

 

On top of that, in the endings, the women don't get as many political opportunities. Ares goes on to rule Augustria, while Shannan takes over Isaach. Altenna would make perfect sense as a ruler of a unified Thracia - daughter of the north, raised in the south - but of course, that title goes to Leif. And otherwise, it's usually "<insert character's> son" taking over a country or house. I.e. Jamke's son ruling Verdane, or Claud's son running Edda. There are a few exceptions, but usually, the women just follow their husbands. Having the "paramount leader" of Grannvale, at Belhalla, being a woman, would be a neat counterbalancing force.

Jugdral has a male preference style of succession, but does allow women to inherit, so with enough deaths you can get women on all the thrones (except Seliph's). In case you are curious, Larcei rules Isaach if both Shannan and her brother dies, Nanna rules Augustria if both Ares and Delmund die, Altenna rules Thracia if Leif dies, Jamke/Lewyn's daughters rules Verdane/Silessia if the sons die. Also I will note that a woman inheriting a throne (even a mere dukedom) always supersedes them going with their husband in the endings.

 

15 hours ago, ARMADS!!! said:

 

 Woke: Make Shannan x Oifrey an option (but seriously, these two should have a paired ending - whether romantic, platonic, ambiguous, or whatever- in a remake, they were friends for some 20 years and went throught a lot together, also in virtue of letting both have more than one ending (that isn't creepy), c'mon, even if the ending is just "they kept being friends and exchanged letters sometimes!")

I love this idea, and I can't fault the logic behind it.

 

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Jugdral has a male preference style of succession, but does allow women to inherit, so with enough deaths you can get women on all the thrones (except Seliph's). In case you are curious, Larcei rules Isaach if both Shannan and her brother dies, Nanna rules Augustria if both Ares and Delmund die, Altenna rules Thracia if Leif dies, Jamke/Lewyn's daughters rules Verdane/Silessia if the sons die. Also I will note that a woman inheriting a throne (even a mere dukedom) always supersedes them going with their husband in the endings.

The beauty of perma death and no retreating characters. I want to see a video of this, the feminist ending of Genealogy. Even Seliph shares his throne with Julia if I recall (though honestly from what we see of her personality, I don't feel like Julia would ever try much to overrule him if there's a dispute, maybe I'm projecting, but she feels pretty passive as a character).

Edited February 29 by Jotari

[ARMADS!!!]

4 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Jugdral has a male preference style of succession, but does allow women to inherit, so with enough deaths you can get women on all the thrones (except Seliph's). In case you are curious, Larcei rules Isaach if both Shannan and her brother dies, Nanna rules Augustria if both Ares and Delmund die, Altenna rules Thracia if Leif dies, Jamke/Lewyn's daughters rules Verdane/Silessia if the sons die. Also I will note that a woman inheriting a throne (even a mere dukedom) always supersedes them going with their husband in the endings.

Not only death, if for example, Shannam dies and Larcei and Ulster are the kids of a man from noble background (like Lex) then the son (Ulster, in this case) will inherit the father's territory and won't have to die for the daughter to inherit the other place (so in this case, Larcei would inherit Isaach). The same happens for Arthur (if he's the kid of someone like Lewyn or Azelle), you won't have to kill him to put Tinny on Friege's throne. I think it's the same case for Nanna, Delmund and Ares too (only Ares has to die if Delmund is the son of a noble dude). All of this is in case you wanna have the minimum amount of deaths for the feminist ending of FE4. I didn't know that the game gave priority to having the women become rulers over going with their husbands though, thats pretty cool. There's also the ending where everybody but Seliph dies too, if I'm remembering it correctly he just rules everything by himself then, so it'd be pretty feminist to have the option of having Lady Seliph: Ruler of the world, but seriously, I do agree with Shanty Pete's First Mate that having a woman as ruler of Granvalle would balance it (and I think Altenna really could have been the ruler of Thracia too, instead or Leif, but alas).

On 2/28/2024 at 10:25 PM, Etrurian emperor said:

I kinda like that. They did raise a child together after all. Also most of the females are decades younger and some of them were even raised by them(or are their cousin!) so having an alternative to that would be welcome. 

 Yeah, I was surprised when I found out that there's a huge amount of people that actually ships Shannan and Patty... If they don't want to make Shannan x Oifrey an explicit option for romance, fine (still give them a paired ending though, please!), but don't keep the options they already had.

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

The beauty of perma death and no retreating characters. I want to see a video of this, the feminist ending of Genealogy. Even Seliph shares his throne with Julia if I recall (though honestly from what we see of her personality, I don't feel like Julia would ever try much to overrule him if there's a dispute, maybe I'm projecting, but she feels pretty passive as a character).

I'd like if FE8 (the one that started the exagerated amount of retreating characters, if I'm not mistaken) had the option of getting endings like this too. Let me see what happens if I kill L'arachel, Joshua and whatnot!

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, ARMADS!!! said:

I'd like if FE8 (the one that started the exagerated amount of retreating characters, if I'm not mistaken) had the option of getting endings like this too. Let me see what happens if I kill L'arachel, Joshua and whatnot!

I'm pretty sure you can kill Joshua. And if you do so before Jehnna then it entirely skips over his reveal. Seth, Innes and L'Arachel are the "upgraded" retreat characters. Which is actually proportionally less than Genealogy's first generation where five whole (non lord) characters retreat for the sake of plot (the Leinster trio, Deirdre and Lewyn), which is a lot given how small the cast is. So in a way, it started here with Genealogy Gen 1, and Gen 2 being the more traditional Fire Emblem story allowed you to kill everyone. But I think it really ramped up in Tellius where there's a lot of plot important characters walking around who can't just be axed suddenly. And while it might hvae reached that high again in numbers with the Fates and Engage Royals, it's never been that high in terms of actual relevant characters contributing to the plot. Most of the royals in Engage and Fates very well could be killed with little to no consequence (main one would be losing the pre-rendered ending videos).

[ARMADS!!!]

34 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I'm pretty sure you can kill Joshua. And if you do so before Jehnna then it entirely skips over his reveal. Seth, Innes and L'Arachel are the "upgraded" retreat characters. Which is actually proportionally less than Genealogy's first generation where five whole (non lord) characters retreat for the sake of plot (the Leinster trio, Deirdre and Lewyn), which is a lot given how small the cast is. So in a way, it started here with Genealogy Gen 1, and Gen 2 being the more traditional Fire Emblem story allowed you to kill everyone. But I think it really ramped up in Tellius where there's a lot of plot important characters walking around who can't just be axed suddenly. And while it might hvae reached that high again in numbers with the Fates and Engage Royals, it's never been that high in terms of actual relevant characters contributing to the plot. Most of the royals in Engage and Fates very well could be killed with little to no consequence (main one would be losing the pre-rendered ending videos).

Myrrh can't die too. I was under the impression that Tana couldn't too cause she gives Ephraim that pep talk near the end of the game (so I figured she had to live until there) but now I looked it up and turns out that she can, and that then L'arachel will talk to him instead. Anyway, turns out that it only has 4 immortal characters instead of 6 as I initially thought. In FE4 I only knew about Deirdre and Finn (though I thought that Finn would leave your party and stop showing up in cutscenes for the rest of gen 1, a la FE7 for the characters that die in your playthrought but canonically lived for longer than the end of the game), I thought it wouldn't matter for Lewyn getting permadeath since he's ressurected either way and that his death in chapter 3 (and maybe 4) just resulted in a game over to avoid his death while he is essential to the plot, but ok, makes sense, then it started with FE4, skipping FE6 (and possibly 5) to being sorta minor in FE7 and FE8 but only going overboard from 9 onwards... I always assumed it "started for real" in 8, cause once I saw a guy making a whole ass rant about how FE7 destroyed the franchise cause it started with the cheated permadeath and when I stopped to think about it I reached the conclusion that it had just a bit more than FE4 (3-4 characters/2-3 units since Ninian and Nils are the same unit -- I never found out if Marcus actually keeps showing up on the cutscenes or if he just doesn't die cause he is in FE6 hence the uncertainty between 2 or 3 units-- not counting the lords and Merlinus, and cause I always forget that Quan and Ethlyn can't die lol so in my head it was Deirdre and sort of Finn) and that it was FE8 that really started it by not letting you kill like 6 people, but figure my calculations were wrong all along then. 

 Do the others in FE4 have actual upgraded permadeaths like in FE7 onwards, as in not being playable anymore, or they all straight up come back on the next chapter too like Deirdre?

[Jotari]

16 minutes ago, ARMADS!!! said:

Myrrh can't die too. I was under the impression that Tana couldn't too cause she gives Ephraim that pep talk near the end of the game (so I figured she had to live until there) but now I looked it up and turns out that she can, and that then L'arachel will talk to him instead. Anyway, turns out that it only has 4 immortal characters instead of 6 as I initially thought. In FE4 I only knew about Deirdre and Finn (though I thought that Finn would leave your party and stop showing up in cutscenes for the rest of gen 1, a la FE7 for the characters that die in your playthrought but canonically lived for longer than the end of the game), I thought it wouldn't matter for Lewyn getting permadeath since he's ressurected either way and that his death in chapter 3 (and maybe 4) just resulted in a game over to avoid his death while he is essential to the plot, but ok, makes sense, then it started with FE4, skipping FE6 (and possibly 5) to being sorta minor in FE7 and FE8 but only going overboard from 9 onwards... I always assumed it "started for real" in 8, cause once I saw a guy making a whole ass rant about how FE7 destroyed the franchise cause it started with the cheated permadeath and when I stopped to think about it I reached the conclusion that it had just a bit more than FE4 (3-4 characters/2-3 units since Ninian and Nils are the same unit -- I never found out if Marcus actually keeps showing up on the cutscenes or if he just doesn't die cause he is in FE6 hence the uncertainty between 2 or 3 units-- not counting the lords and Merlinus, and cause I always forget that Quan and Ethlyn can't die lol so in my head it was Deirdre and sort of Finn) and that it was FE8 that really started it by not letting you kill like 6 people, but figure my calculations were wrong all along then. 

 Do the others in FE4 have actual upgraded permadeaths like in FE7 onwards, as in not being playable anymore, or they all straight up come back on the next chapter too like Deirdre?

No, Deirdre (and Julila) is unique (and even Julia can die in the final chapter, I think). Quan, Ethlyn and Finn just say they need to go back to Leinster and then visibly leave the map. Lewyn is the one with the most modern retreat mechanic wherein he just says he can't afford to die here in his death quote and just shows up later. The problem with him just being revived regardless of where he dies is that his revival is tied to the Forseti Tome which he only acquires in Chapter 4. So if they had him die in Agustria it wouldn't really make sense. You can of course miss that event and he can die in gameplay earlier, but presumably all that stuff still happens.

Even in Genealogy with its retreating characters  Gen 1 Oifey (and to a lesser extent Shannan) and Gen 2 Lewyn are not playable. Binding Blade is significant here in that it introduced Merlinus as an immortal character. Though a character that can die in every chapter never really caught on in the franchise (and Deirdre did kind of do that first), Merlinus was significant in that it gave the very traditional role of the advisor character, aka the person the protagonist actually speaks to, because being an NPC they're guaranteed to be alive, to a playable character. And since they still have to fullfill that role while being a playable character, immortal advisors were established and the series has never really looked back. Though, I guess Sothis kind of fullfils that role in Three Houses.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

4 hours ago, ARMADS!!! said:

Yeah, I was surprised when I found out that there's a huge amount of people that actually ships Shannan and Patty...

I think this is as simple as "they show up in the same place, so people ship 'em". Like Tailtiu and Claud, or Edain and Dew. There's nothing really deeper to it.

9 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Also I will note that a woman inheriting a throne (even a mere dukedom) always supersedes them going with their husband in the endings.

Ah yeah, that's true. I remember, in a recent playthrough, Tinne going off to run House Friege. This was because Arthur was Lewyn's son, so he inherited Silesse. But it meant Seliph and Tinne, whom I paired together, wound up seperated after the war. Go get that bread, sister.

36 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Binding Blade is significant here in that it introduced Merlinus as an immortal character.

I feel like there's so much untapped potential to Merlinus's immortality. Like, he's a free "lure" to draw in powerful enemies. Kind of like how people eventually learned to use Phantom summons in Sacred Stones. Maybe it's the fact that he can only function this way once-per-map that turns people away? Or that a unit who can only gain 1 EXP at a time has an inherently bad "unit feel"? Who knows...

4 hours ago, ARMADS!!! said:

There's also the ending where everybody but Seliph dies too, if I'm remembering it correctly he just rules everything by himself then, so it'd be pretty feminist to have the option of having Lady Seliph: Ruler of the world, but seriously, I do agree with Shanty Pete's First Mate that having a woman as ruler of Granvalle would balance it (and I think Altenna really could have been the ruler of Thracia too, instead or Leif, but alas).

Thanks for the thought!

Grannvale seems to exist in a space that's not overtly patriarchal, per se - we know that women can, and in several cases do, exercise political power - but rather, one that "just so happens" to have a lot of men in power (and boys poised to succeed them). Sigurd and Eldigan "happening" to be the elder brother to Ethlyn and Lachesis, and thus inheriting Chalphy and Nordion, respectively. Seliph, Ares, and Shannan all "happen" to be boys. On top of that, the game throws dozens of "Ugly Barons" at the player, to the extent that the only female enemies I can think of (who also wield political power) are Hilda and Ishtar. Granted, it's great that we have them, along with women like Aida and Liza - and that characters like Brigid and Julia get their legendary weapons. But it's definitely a different picture from the more "egalitarian" style the series has tried to push since Awakening. Not saying worse, just different.

[Jotari]

3 hours ago, Shanty Pete&#x27;s 1st Mate said:

I think this is as simple as "they show up in the same place, so people ship 'em". Like Tailtiu and Claud, or Edain and Dew. There's nothing really deeper to it.

Well Patty does show up saying she's OMG Shannan's greatest fan and he can just have this super valuable sword she'd just risked her life stealing that she was determined to not give to him just moments before she learned his name. That's a bit more to go on than simply showing up together. Unfortunately that's all Heroes remembered about Patty and decided to turn it into the entirety of her character.

3 hours ago, Shanty Pete&#x27;s 1st Mate said:

Grannvale seems to exist in a space that's not overtly patriarchal, per se - we know that women can, and in several cases do, exercise political power - but rather, one that "just so happens" to have a lot of men in power (and boys poised to succeed them). Sigurd and Eldigan "happening" to be the elder brother to Ethlyn and Lachesis, and thus inheriting Chalphy and Nordion, respectively. Seliph, Ares, and Shannan all "happen" to be boys. On top of that, the game throws dozens of "Ugly Barons" at the player, to the extent that the only female enemies I can think of (who also wield political power) are Hilda and Ishtar. Granted, it's great that we have them, along with women like Aida and Liza - and that characters like Brigid and Julia get their legendary weapons. But it's definitely a different picture from the more "egalitarian" style the series has tried to push since Awakening. Not saying worse, just different.

I think the most patriarchal element a play here is how Alvis just naturally becomes emperor by way of his marriage to Deirdre. Deirdre's the heir with the right lineage yet he's not ruling in her name, he's ruling in his own via his marriage to her. Granted the amnesiac Deirdre doesn't seem the type that would particularly want to rule nor even have the required knowledge and experience to actually did show if she did. Still it's notable that it's a straight up emperor situation and not a consort. Course Alvis also just got finished recently murdering anyone who would have any dissenting thoughts on the manner too (that also being said, this arrangement seems to have been Old King Azmur's idea to begin with).

[Etrurian emperor]

7 hours ago, Shanty Pete&#x27;s 1st Mate said:

On top of that, the game throws dozens of "Ugly Barons" at the player, to the extent that the only female enemies I can think of (who also wield political power) are Hilda and Ishtar.

Even with Ishtar its dubious whether she has political power or not since she's such a doormat. She seems content to let her mom run her duchy for her, and otherwise does what Julius tells her to. I recall her ordering the soldiers to stay away from the place she hid the children not so much by pulling rank as by threatening them with her power. And while this is purely gameplay related Ishtar's the only Freege member who doesn't control a castle/territory at one point or another. 

[Acacia Sgt]

6 hours ago, Jotari said:

I think the most patriarchal element a play here is how Alvis just naturally becomes emperor by way of his marriage to Deirdre. Deirdre's the heir with the right lineage yet he's not ruling in her name, he's ruling in his own via his marriage to her. Granted the amnesiac Deirdre doesn't seem the type that would particularly want to rule nor even have the required knowledge and experience to actually did show if she did. Still it's notable that it's a straight up emperor situation and not a consort. Course Alvis also just got finished recently murdering anyone who would have any dissenting thoughts on the manner too (that also being said, this arrangement seems to have been Old King Azmur's idea to begin with).

If I recall, Azmur says the next ruler would be their son (he still specifies son and skips Deirdre for the position, yes), so Arvis was only going to rule through regency. That said, Arvis being Arvis, he was going to find a way to be the one calling the shots anyway. Officially he's still consort/regent, but by that point it's a distinction without difference (well, at least until Loptr!Julius starts subverting him anyway), so he's just straight called Emperor by everyone.

[Sidereal Wraith]

I really enjoyed the designs of the GBA games and Tellius Saga, those would be some of the best in my opinion. The worst designs would have to be the ones found in Engage, for reasons to numerous to individually itemize. 

 

[ARMADS!!!]

30 minutes ago, Sidereal Wraith said:

I really enjoyed the designs of the GBA games and Tellius Saga, those would be some of the best in my opinion. The worst designs would have to be the ones found in Engage, for reasons to numerous to individually itemize. 

 

 For real, I remember how my absurd happiness about hearing the rumors about the new FE (that was Engage) immediately became despair in the moment I saw the photos of the leak with (the then called by the fandom) Toothpaste-chan, I never wanted so hard for a leak to be a joke.

 At least the S support CGs are not vomit inducing like the ones in 3 Houses (that'd be hard though, so it's not really a compliment), I stil dislike them a bit (wish they just never used that pink sky background again cause I'm sure sick of that...) but at least there isn't that bizarre difference of quality when compared to the portraits (and every other piece of art for the game, such as the cover and official artwork) like it does in 3 Houses, makes me wonder if it was even the same person that made those CGs and the rest of the art, and if no then why'd they change artists there and let the CGs end as bizarre as that, and if yes then what happened for the same person to do something so obviously worse (and the bosses/supervisors aprove it). No joke when I say the S support CGs for 3 Houses must be the worst pieces or art for the mainline games of the series (I say mainline cause feh might have some art I dislike just as much, though in the context of the game I care a lot less, and also none specific one comes to mind now).

Edited March 2 by ARMADS!!!

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, ARMADS!!! said:

 For real, I remember how my absurd happiness about hearing the rumors about the new FE (that was Engage) immediately became despair in the moment I saw the photos of the leak with (the then called by the fandom) Toothpaste-chan, I never wanted so hard for a leak to be a joke.

 At least the S support CGs are not vomit inducing like the ones in 3 Houses (that'd be hard though, so it's not really a compliment), I stil dislike them a bit (wish they just never used that pink sky background again cause I'm sure sick of that...) but at least there isn't that bizarre difference of quality when compared to the portraits (and every other piece of art for the game, such as the cover and official artwork) like it does in 3 Houses, makes me wonder if it was even the same person that made those CGs and the rest of the art, and if no then why'd they change artists there and let the CGs end as bizarre as that, and if yes then what happened for the same person to do something so obviously worse (and the bosses/supervisors aprove it). No joke when I say the S support CGs for 3 Houses must be the worst pieces or art for the mainline games of the series (I say mainline cause feh might have some art I dislike just as much, though in the context of the game I care a lot less, and also none specific one comes to mind now).

I'm not sure how popular an opinion or not it is, but I think the chapter intro/overall ending art in Three Houses is fugly. I get what they were going for with the medieval style artwork, hut I don't think they did a good job of aping that style while still making something that's good to look at.

[ARMADS!!!]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

I'm not sure how popular an opinion or not it is, but I think the chapter intro/overall ending art in Three Houses is fugly. I get what they were going for with the medieval style artwork, hut I don't think they did a good job of aping that style while still making something that's good to look at.

Hmmm, I've never seen those before you mentioned it now, I just looked it up and actually found them pretty good. I mean, it's not pretty, it's ugly as hell but in a cool way, medieval illumination is always fugly anyway (at least for me), I mean... look at this! So I think that they made it as good to look at as these things can be (which is not much), but since the idea is pretty cool I don't mind that it still ended up being ugly, actually I sorta respect it that they didn't try to make it more too much beautiful than it was in real life (even then, it's a bit more, it has better colors and compositions than most medieval illuminations I've seen). From my quick search for the images, I only found people praising them too, obviously not trying to dismiss your opinion by saying this (I mean, it's pretty easy to get why someone wouldn't like these), just mentioning that apparently I'm not the only one who liked it.

 The S support CGs look so atrocious to me not only cause they're ugly, it's just that they're so low quality and weird, look like fanart but it's on the actual game, and a bunch of them are unecessarily corny, also the fact that they're ugly while that's obviously not the intention. They just piss me off so much. I don't know how unpopular is my opinion here too, I've seen people expressing dislike for them a few times, but given the amount of fanart that people do on the same style (but for characters from previous games) and that they did the same thing again in Engage (although in better quality) I presume these CGs have a bunch of people that like them too. Still, I can't over how much I detest them, most of the characters were drawn without a nose, and that pink sky background has a special place on the farthest place away from my heart.

[Dark Holy Elf]

9 hours ago, ARMADS!!! said:

 The S support CGs look so atrocious to me not only cause they're ugly, it's just that they're so low quality and weird, look like fanart but it's on the actual game, and a bunch of them are unecessarily corny, also the fact that they're ugly while that's obviously not the intention. They just piss me off so much. I don't know how unpopular is my opinion here too, I've seen people expressing dislike for them a few times, but given the amount of fanart that people do on the same style (but for characters from previous games) and that they did the same thing again in Engage (although in better quality) I presume these CGs have a bunch of people that like them too. Still, I can't over how much I detest them, most of the characters were drawn without a nose, and that pink sky background has a special place on the farthest place away from my heart.

I think people like the idea of them, but mostly, not the art. Heck, 3H fanart itself is awash with similar CGs for the Three Houses characters themselves.