So, what missed chances would you say this game has? (SPOILERS)

[Sasori]

The traitor thing was indeed handled very very badly. They could have just left him out or at least offered some more information about him.

I don't think Lon'qu lost because "Marth" was a female because he mentions multiple time that his problem doesn't bother him in combat because he needs to focus on his fighting or something like that. I thought they where surprised because Lon looks like a stoic and skilled mercenary and comes across as more threatening then Marth.

I thought the entire valm arc was a bit of a miss. The whole plot had little relevance on the rest of the story and the villains suffered from little screentime. Yen'fay for example is mentioned a lot, but he appears in one chapter and dies there without saying more then a few lines.

Edited May 19, 2013 by Sasori

[shadowofchaos]

I don't think Lon'qu lost because "Marth" was a female because he mentions multiple time that his problem doesn't bother him in combat because he needs to focus on his fighting or something like that. I thought they where surprised because Lon looks like a stoic and skilled mercenary and comes across as more threatening then Marth.

He noticed something off, and then "Marth" used that opening to defeat him. I don't remember where I saw that from though.

[PKLucas531]

Phila's death from "Hey I just summoned a bunch of Archers in one turn that's against the rules isn't it" also bothers me a lot.

I get that's it's a reference(or at least I hope it is, otherwise it's even worse) to Mahnya's death in FE4, but it literally has no impact on anything. We don't care who Phila is before or after.

[RJWalker]

It's like they added in any and every basic plotline that worked in the previous games but didn't really understand why those plotlines worked in the previous games in the first place.

The Camus archetype? Mustafa shows up in the very same chapter that he dies in. And while Camus himself only makes a small cameo before his own chapter, atleast the other characters often take note of his honour and skill. And Yenfay? Alright, he was handled well enough.

The self-sacrificing elder sister? Elice's sacrifice had a purpose. It was to buy Marth time to escape. Emmeryn does the EXACT OPPOSITE thing. Her soldiers (like Cordelia's squad) have paid with their lives to get her to safety? She decides to honour their sacrifice by rendering it meaningless by going back. And it doesn't even take a whole chapter for her to get captured again. The the very next scene is of Chrom getting the news that's she's been captured. Well big fucking surprise!

A Catria like character? Here's a hint as to why Catria worked well: It was subtle, not IN YO' FACE all the fucking time.

And then there's Valm. Fucking Valm. Honestly? Gangrel should have been the focus. He's so much more interesting than Walhart could ever hope to be.

Edited May 19, 2013 by Ranger Jack Walker

[NinjaMonkey]

Lol at people who play videogames for the story...

I think it would have been nice if the Avatar's childre got a plot role.

So how are you going to do that if you wanted to marry Aversa, Walhart or Priam, then? You know, seeing as the main story is over by then...

[Book Bro]

Lol at people who play videogames for the story...

Oh? I wasn't aware video games should just be considered mindless entertainment. I'd rather have a bit of substance in what I consume, thanks.

[-Cynthia-]

The final choice would have been better if Robin actually died, not this 'bonds of friendship bringing you back' stuff which cheapens the whole thing.

Yen'fay's deal would have made a lot more sense with a third sibling involved. It's pretty obvious Say'ri isn't in position to be killed by Excellus after she joins Chrom's army (if Excellus can kill people in Chrom's army, you'd think he would just kill Chrom). Yen'fay just keeps fighting Chrom's army for some reason.

[BrightBow]

Oh yeah, the Archers. I still wonder if laughing along with Gangrel is the audience reaction that IS was actually going for. I can't believe that this Corpse EX Machina could possibly be intended to be dramatic.

It wasn't even established that Ganral has any sort of control over them. Though It probably does establish Hard Mode as canon.

I am not sure how you could possibly explain the archer nonsense but for the scene itself, wouldn't it have been better to occur in the area at the beginning of the map, where you could actually see the cliff and Eyminne? Radiant Dawn had scenes like that. Like during 3-12. The way it's done, it's merely unimpressive and confusing.

Also, Chrom did well taking out all the Dragon Riders in the ten seconds it would have taken Ghandral to bring in a second soldier to shove Emmirin down...

Speaking of Emmyrin, I would say that her death was also underscored by the random corpses.

Besides that, I think it should have happened during the chapter and maybe that should have ended the chapter prematurely as well. That way it would also feel more like a failure to the player.

Either way, she and Philia were way to underdeveloped to mourn about. Even in Mahnya's case, it was mostly sad because of the reactions of Fury and Levin. But Philia has no relationship to anyone but Emmyrin. She should have gotten a scene or two were we actually talk to her. Like with Sigrun in PoR. And maybe make her show up as an actual unit. To make Players think that she might be recruitable instead of merely being a red shirt.

Emmyrin isn't much better. Her being such a good person is mostly an informed ability. She never really gets to show that compassion and is limited to looking like an idealistic fool, who has to be stopped from by people around her from doing something stupid.

And another thing: In Greil's case, while we all knew he was dead on arrival, he was the leader until he died. He was calling the shots, no question. So when he died, we knew things were going to change.

Emmyrin is never much of a leader. Mostly it's just her wanting to do something dumb and then the others would try to talk her out of it until she complies.

I also hated how quickly Lissa got over her death. She got like one line and then she is like: "Let's smash something". Yes, I think that's actually literally what she said.

And given the nature of the supports, she can't even bring it up there. Unlike let's say in PoR, where JillxLethe A could only happen after the Talrega incident. So naturally it takes it into account.

And the JillxMist support has actually two versions, depending on whether it's before or after Talrega.

And unlike Lissa, Jill isn't even a main character.

Edited May 19, 2013 by BrightBow

[The Void]

A Catria like character? Here's a hint as to why Catria worked well: It was subtle, not IN YO' FACE all the fucking time.

She also wasn't in a game where you could pick who was paired with who unless you went around killing people off.

[Robinigo]

As mentioned more than enough times, the dip in the story once *spoiler* reveals who she is to Chrom bothers me. It went from epic quest across plegia; your hair blowing in the breeze, cultists surrounding your encampment, to "oh, your continent's been taken over by your friendly neighborhood Walmart? It's not like I have a country, wife, and young child to look after, now is it? Hashtag YOLO and all that"

The multiplayer could've used wireless communications to do a versus map with two armies of real players duking it out with INTELLIGENT commands, because streetpass units aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer.

Cut-ins for legacy units, maybe? Even just support conversations, maybe a simple one conversation with a few characters deal, no marriages, just lore, and speculation to be had.

I could live without all the spotpass characters as well, Emm never had miracle I think, she should have died, end of story. Gangrel sort of got cut/burned/magicked to death so, dead. Yen'fey I can kinda give some lee-way, about five feet of it though. Aversa, nope. Walhart, nope. Priam could've made a better midgame character and pulled a Joshua, ended up being crowned "descendant of Ike" and be gifted Ragnell late-game.

Bishops, I miss bishops... Slayer would've been a cool looking, although useless in streetpass, skill. On that subject, let's talk about risen... Make 'em all weak to the blessed gear, not just revenants and entombed, blessed gear is all but useless.

Un-fix the hammerne exploit, triple the price, I DON'T CARE. Just make them three uses again, I'm sick of all my stuff breaking when I don't want it to, ie. Mystletainn, owain's 98% armsthrift chance, it lies.

That's enough groaning and griping for one night, the negative aura can't be good for any of us.

[shadowofchaos]

So how are you going to do that if you wanted to marry Aversa, Walhart or Priam, then? You know, seeing as the main story is over by then...

I would have liked it if the one who brought you back from the Abyss in the intro scene of the final chapter was your significant other, instead of Chrom. Unless of course he's your significant other.

[Thor Odinson]

Some of character development I've seen in the Scramble DLC should've made it into the actual supports. Yes, they got that ridiculous crack thing involving "boingy bits" and there are a few others that are really meh but more often than not the convos I've read contained a lot more depth than the ingame supports, and evoked more feeling. Wish they'd done a lot of the supports better, since a lot of the them are one-note and leaves only a few supports per character for the most part to do any real character development, and some are even lucky to get one. There are several characters I've ended up disliking from the supports that I ended up becoming at least neutral towards due to seeing them in a different light from the scramble dlc.

I mean I still like a lot of the characters from whatever the characterisations I can gather and work from there but there's no denying that IS really could've done a better job fleshing out these characters better what with the whole support everyone thing and adding a few quirks. You got a bajillion support slots to do plenty of characterisation and you fill a lot of them with basically the same content, wtf?

And the later prepromotes could've supported more people, as well. Don't have to be marriages. Hell, I find the friendship supports better written for the most part in this game. More of those would be great.

I mean there's kind of a problem when a fanservice DLC has more in-depth convos than your average support conversations

Future Past too but at least Future Past is supposed to be all feels and shit

Edited May 21, 2013 by Thor Odinson

[Sunwoo]

Different map objectives other than rout and defeat commander.

Because I cannot take the game's sense of urgency in Valm arc seriously when I can take as much time as I want in all the maps and destroy the entire map easily because the game tells me to ;/

[Listeya]

Also where the hell was she for two years between Ch11 and Ch13? Seriously, nothing appears to have happened. She accomplished jack squat that whole time. Shouldn't she have... I dunno... looked for her friends who came back with her? She couldn't find a single one but Chrom could find all of them by apparently wandering randomly? Maybe go looking for the stones that you knew Chrom was going to need at some point? Go shank Validar before he gets too much of a power base in Plegia? Anybody? Bueller?

Exactly. It's completely ridiculous that two years supposedly passed and yet nobody noticed Validar coming to power (didn't anyone in power in Ylisse maybe think it might be a good idea to keep an eye on the enemy nation whose king they just killed?) none of the other kids showed up and Lucina didn't behave a little more proactively.

I suspect the game tries to handwave the above away with the whole "the timeline is changing since Lucina came back and interfered, so she doesn't know what's going to happen now" but there's no excuse for them not knowing about Plegia or for the kids. It's pure idiot plot, just like Lucina's unnecessary "Marth" disguise and Emmeryn's survival.

Most of my issues have been covered already, but I'll add:

Emmeryn's survival. Stupid, unnecessary, though I do give the game some points for having her permanantly disabled from her injuries.

Gangrel's survival I actually don't mind, but if they wanted to use the "good intentions corrupted by power" plotline with him, it should have been foreshadowed in his character earlier in the story and not left entirely to his paralogue.

Yen'fay and Sayri were both pointless. They should have either given them both more development and plotline importance so we actually care about their role in the story or they should have been left as they are, but as NPCs, not recruits, so the lack of development is more forgivable.

Valm=unnecessary, not developed well.

There's a lot of other small things, like character development in the supports not carrying out to the main game or other supports. I realize that it would be an incredible undertaking (if not totally impossible to do something like that), but it does hurt things here and there.

Last but not least: if the Avatar's mother was so determined to shield them from Grima and Plegia, then why are they running around wearing a coat covered in Grima's symbols?

For example, does no one else find it weird that Lucina still refers to her mother as "milady"?

This is actually realistic. Lucina's a pretty formal person and back in the day, it wasn't uncommon at all for noble/royal children to refer to their parents as "my lord/my lady" or address them as "sir/madam" or "lady mother/lord father". Some families were so formal, children had to actually bow to their parents upon meeting them and then wait for their parents to speak to them before they could say anything--they weren't allowed to talk first, because it would have been a serious breach of manners.

[Sunwoo]

This is actually realistic. Lucina's a pretty formal person and back in the day, it wasn't uncommon at all for noble/royal children to refer to their parents as "my lord/my lady" or address them as "sir/madam" or "lady mother/lord father". Some families were so formal, children had to actually bow to their parents upon meeting them and then wait for their parents to speak to them before they could say anything--they weren't allowed to talk first, because it would have been a serious breach of manners.

My problem with that, though, is that she always refers to her mother as such: "Mother". After the reunion scene in chapter 13, where she says "I thought you might mind", she always refers to her mother as "Mother". If female Avatar was Lucina's mom, it is suddenly jarring to see her go from "Mother" to "milady". In the one situation where "Mother" would matter most.

[shadowofchaos]

For example, does no one else find it weird that Lucina still refers to her mother as "milady"? And Laurent's quote about "rollicking adventures" makes me want to facepalm when Robin is his father.

This is actually realistic. Lucina's a pretty formal person and back in the day, it wasn't uncommon at all for noble/royal children to refer to their parents as "my lord/my lady" or address them as "sir/madam" or "lady mother/lord father". Some families were so formal, children had to actually bow to their parents upon meeting them and then wait for their parents to speak to them before they could say anything--they weren't allowed to talk first, because it would have been a serious breach of manners.

My problem with that, though, is that she always refers to her mother as such: "Mother". After the reunion scene in chapter 13, where she says "I thought you might mind", she always refers to her mother as "Mother". If female Avatar was Lucina's mom, it is suddenly jarring to see her go from "Mother" to "milady". In the one situation where "Mother" would matter most.

Wahoo for languages.

[ルキナ]

私はあなたを信じます。

何が起きても、ずっと…▼

"I believe in you, [implied subject, whoever you are to her.]. Whatever happens I will always believe in you."

It's completely normal for her to say "I BELIEVE IN YOU!" with anata, even to her mother.

Glorious.

Edited May 21, 2013 by shadowofchaos

[SmallPox]

Lol at people who play videogames for the story...

If i wasn't, i would not play the fire emblem franchise.

I actually don't know if you're trolling. If you do, then you succeed.

[Sol Hiryu]

There's a bunch of issues with Awakening's story that I really don't want to go over again (Chrom being Sigurd 2.0 in the intelligence department, the entire wasted plotline over Gangrel and the former Plegia/Ylisse war, everything about Valm ever, etc.), but I really took issue with Validar and Aversa being the worst villains ever. If you though the senators from Radiant Dawn were bad, Validar makes them look competent.

[Vashiane]

If I dared to delve into the faults the story has, I'd be here all day. No joke.

As a person who DOES play videogames for the story, I was sorely disappointed, but thank God the cast is lovable enough to make up for it, even if the appearance of a certain lord's daughter hijacks the story away from said cast.

That being said, chapter 1-9, 18 and the beginning of 23 are well-done. It's... everything else.

[The Void]

Here's another thing:

There's how Lucina's sibling supports are so similar. You'd think with how Chrom's pairing options are so limited that Lucina's sibling supports could have been more distinct.

Edited May 22, 2013 by The Void

[Vashiane]

Here's another thing:

There's how Lucina's sibling supports are so similar. You'd think with how Chrom's pairing options are so limited that of Lucina's sibling supports could have been more distinct.

Her sibling supports and the father-child supports are generic save the speech patterns.

[The Void]

Yes. And I'm referring to it as a missed chance. With how limited Chrom's pairing options are, Lucina being the only 2nd Gen who is born regardless of pairing options and how prominent she is, as well as how different Lucina's possible siblings are from each other, would it really have been too much for Lucina's sibling supports to be more distinct?

[Armaada J]

I think they screwed up on the risen. We re literally given ZERO clues as to whether they really are fllen warriors or not. Plus, the scene where the risen appears to imply that the risen came from the future with Lucina! Which would literally be the most ironic thing that I have ever seen in a video game.

[Vashiane]

I think they screwed up on the risen. We re literally given ZERO clues as to whether they really are fllen warriors or not. Plus, the scene where the risen appears to imply that the risen came from the future with Lucina! Which would literally be the most ironic thing that I have ever seen in a video game.

... Oh, gee, I've seen that cutscene how many times and didn't come to that conclusion?

Or maybe Grima opened that portal beforehand to let the Risen in, and Lucina simply followed?

[Armaada J]

... Oh, gee, I've seen that cutscene how many times and didn't come to that conclusion?

Or maybe Grima opened that portal beforehand to let the Risen in, and Lucina simply followed?

Makes sense I guess, but didn't Lucina say that NAGA sent the kids back in time? and also, how the heck did Morgan's sibling not realize that s/he wasn't from their timeline? WTF?????