General opinions on fates and how it ranks compared to the series

[Zeekov]

Hey this might be dumb but I've seen so much dislike and downright hate for fates it has generally demotivated me playing it anymore or the series in general so I wanted to know if all the hate it gets on reddit really is the general opinion on the game or not.

It's weird because I picked it up and I absolutely adored fates and Corrin him becoming one of my most adored characters in gaming and when I went to look for people who I can talk to about it all i really was met with is a general hate for its story its characters revelation and birthrights level design corrin as a character and this has for the first time ever affected me playing a game. I don't know if I'm wrong and the game really isn't all that great (I've entirely purged the thought of it being amazing out of my head now) or maybe if it's just a really vocal minority and the majority of the fanbase love it too. I really don't wanna come off as some emotional idiot who got way too attached to a game and then feela bad for it getting shit on but I somehow feel like it's what happened and its my fault. I'm really new to the series and was looking forward to playing all the games and falling in love with them all like so many of you have but I've somehow lost interest in doing it. I'm not even really sure what this post is even about anymore and I hope I'm not just wasting peoples time.

[Magical Glace]

You're free to your own opinion, dude. People can like/dislike/not care at all about Fates all they want.

I will say that the 3DS games are very divisive just in general. Some people (myself included) just don't like the current direction of the series.

[Avalanche]

Gameplay wise? Easily my favorite (or tied with Radiant Dawn). Story wise? Well... Umm... There are a good amount of supports I like. I play FE for gameplay first, Supports second, Overall story fairly distant third, so I guess that's why I'm still pretty into Fates even after putting about 200 hours into it.

Edited September 3, 2016 by Avalanche

[Zeekov]

It's kind of weird though since imagine it like finding a puppy and loving it just to find out that when you go to bring it up literally no one likes it and many outright hate it. In this scenario I just wonder whats wrong with me for liking it so I wanted to know if it really is the way most look at it.

[Nobody]

I love fates (well, only conquest tbh) and I also really like most other games in the series. I think most of the hate fates gets comes from the story, I don't see people complaining about its gameplay much. I basically only play FE for gameplay, though

[Magical Glace]

It's kind of weird though since imagine it like finding a puppy and loving it just to find out that when you go to bring it up literally no one likes it and many outright hate it. In this scenario I just wonder whats wrong with me for liking it so I wanted to know if it really is the way most look at it.

Nothing is wrong with you, it just means you have an opinion.

...Wait, people hate on puppies? Well, I guess they slobber a bit, but they're so cuuuuuuute.

As for the general opinion? It depends on the part of the game. The story and characters of Fates are generally seen as the weakest or among the weakest, respectively, though they have fans. Gameplay-wise they're generally viewed favorably by most people, from my observations, though there's still problems.

[Topaz Light]

Honestly, I think a lot of the hatred for Fates' story is probably because they tried to sell the story as being some big improvement over Awakening's in interviews leading up to the game's release, and then when it actually came out, it turned out that the main plot was actually so bad as to be a step down from Awakening, depending on how you see it. If they hadn't tried to hype up the plot like they did, most people probably wouldn't be as harsh to it; it'd most likely be seen by the majority of players as just the pretty lackluster and unremarkable shonen anime/manga story that it is. It's the betrayal of expectations that I'd wager most people are so upset about, not so much the actual specific story itself. I know that that's the case with myself, at least.

As for my own opinion on Fates?

Since I've already brought up the story, I'm gonna start there. I think that the plot has a lot of interesting concepts and ideas that went into it, but it's ultimately executed so poorly in most respects that the whole thing kinda falls flat. I feel kinda bad for saying this, but I also find Corrin to be frankly a pretty unlikable person and a poor protagonist; they come across to me as kinda dim and ultimately more concerned with themself and their own personal, internal narrative than with the reality of the situations they get into. Some of the characters are alright, I suppose, but, like in Awakening, the focus on gimmicks and the lack of much worldbuilding to create a believable setting for them to inhabit holds them back from really being all that interesting or impactful.

As for the gameplay and stuff, I think Fates is pretty competent in that regard. I don't really care much for the steps it takes towards being more like standard RPGs (infinite weapon uses, the way Skills are acquired, etc.) since I feel that it's a bit of a slippery slope that could end up doing away with what makes Fire Emblem unique and distinct, but I do think Fates introduced a lot of cool new classes—redundant ones like Spear Fighter, Spear Master, and Blacksmith notwithstanding, since those don't really count as "new"—and some pretty nice new Skills, too. I also definitely appreciate the return of varying chapter objectives; I really hope that that's back to stay.

As for general aesthetic? Ehh, it's alright. I think that outfit designs are kinda hit or miss in terms of how well they stack up to Awakening's; Knights look a lot better now, for example, while Fighters... don't so much. The armor design is a little bit better, but by and large retains a lot of the same flaws with it that Awakening had. If only every Great Knight could dress like Frederick and Gunter, instead of the mess that is the class's generic outfit...

Edited September 3, 2016 by Topaz Light

[Alastor15243]

Topaz has the right of it. The fact that they basically said "yes, fans, we've heard of your complaints about Awakening's story, and we've taken measures to make sure that this one is a good one", combined with the sheer potential the game's brilliant premise offered, caused people's expectations for the story to go through the roof, or at the very least up to the levels of 4, 5 and 9.

And then it turned out to be boring at best and garbage at worst.

My main issue is with Conquest, but really they crippled their own premise with one very questionable decision: they made Hoshido almost entirely in the right and Nohr mostly in the wrong. Honestly that ruined most of the potential the premise had, but Conquest's story sucked even further because they also threw in two additional decisions:

1: They didn't want Nohrrin to be evil.

2: They wanted Conquest to involve fighting all of the Hoshidan characters.

Neither of these on their own is a bad idea, but when combined with each other and the black and white morality, it forces them to concoct an excuse plot to magically convert the action of going to war with a decent and peaceful people into a heroic act by way of contrived magical macguffins. And even then they screw it up because they didn't do it properly and thus made the whole plan nonsensical and hilariously cowardly and selfish on Corrin's part.

Honestly, however, the fact that its story sucks doesn't impact my opinion of the game much at all, and I consider Conquest to be among the best gameplaywise in the entire series, and as a result Conquest is my new favorite Fire Emblem game despite my hatred of the story. Though you should take my ability to ignore the story with a grain of salt, because I've also been alternately roasting and rewriting Fates' story for the past several months, and it's possible that that activity has dulled my frustration with it since I have a more "developed" "headcanon" to retreat into. I don't know for certain how my opinion of Fates would have changed if I hadn't done that.

Edited September 3, 2016 by Alastor15243

[Zeekov]

Topaz has the right of it. The fact that they basically said "yes, fans, we've heard of your complaints about Awakening's story, and we've taken measures to make sure that this one is a good one", combined with the sheer potential the game's brilliant premise offered, caused people's expectations for the story to go through the roof, or at the very least up to the levels of 4, 5 and 9.

And then it turned out to be boring at best and garbage at worst.

My main issue is with Conquest, but really they crippled their own premise with one very questionable decision: they made Hoshido almost entirely in the right and Nohr mostly in the wrong. Honestly that ruined most of the potential the premise had, but Conquest's story sucked even further because they also threw in two additional decisions:

1: They didn't want Nohrrin to be evil.

2: They wanted Conquest to involve fighting all of the Hoshidan characters.

Neither of these on their own is a bad idea, but when combined with each other and the black and white morality, it forces them to concoct an excuse plot to magically convert the action of going to war with a decent and peaceful people into a heroic act by way of contrived magical macguffins. And even then they screw it up because they didn't do it properly and thus made the whole plan nonsensical and hilariously cowardly and selfish on Corrin's part.

Honestly, however, the fact that its story sucks doesn't impact my opinion of the game much at all, and I consider Conquest to be among the best gameplay in the entire series, and as a result Conquest is my new favorite Fire Emblem game despite my hatred of the story. Though you should take my ability to ignore the story with a grain of salt, because I've also been alternately roasting and rewriting Fates' story for the past several months, and it's possible that that activity has dulled my frustration with it since I have a more "developed" "headcanon" to retreat into. I don't know for certain how my opinion of Fates would have changed if I hadn't done that.

Have you posted your version of the story anywhere? I'm curious to read it.

[Alastor15243]

Have you posted your version of the story anywhere? I'm curious to read it.

It's in my sig. And for future reference in case that ever stops being so, here's another link.

Keep in mind that it doesn't get into rewrite territory significantly until Conquest. In Birthright I mostly do some "abridged series" esque modifications for humor. The only thing I significantly rewrite is the justification for the child system.

Hope you enjoy :)

Edited September 3, 2016 by Alastor15243

[The Geek]

Gameplay wise? Easily my favorite (or tied with Radiant Dawn). Story wise? Well... Umm... There are a good amount of supports I like. I play FE for gameplay first, Supports second, Overall story fairly distant third, so I guess that's why I'm still pretty into Fates even after putting about 200 hours into it.

I largely agree with this post, though I haven't put nearly that much time into Fates (been too busy). I feel like it's a great addition to the series, even though the story is probably one of the worst in the series overall.

Hopefully after two straight games of getting negative feedback on story from fans, IS will try something different. Hopefully.

[Sentinel07]

When it comes to main characters, they really need to stop having every single thing revolve around the main character. To me, Corrin feels like they were trying to replicate Marth in a way, except SD's plot didn't bow down to Marth. He was simply one of many cogs at work, while Fates has essentially every single plot point revolve around Corrin.

You know, in a way, I think Intelligent Systems has begun to treat both Fire Emblem and Paper Mario in the exact same way.

Earlier Fire Emblem games as well as the first 2 Paper Mario games had wide overarching stories which many appreciated about them. However, looking at Awakening/Fates and Sticker Star, the stories have become increasingly more episodic.

[Master Thunderblade]

I really enjoyed Fates so far, sure I have a few nitpicks here and there with the story (and gameplay as well). But nothing substantial that makes me classify Fates as a bad Fire Emblem game. Of course I will refrain from placing my final judgment until I have finished all three routes. That being said, I would personally like to see future games shifting away from the rather large focus on the marriage system. Although this might also be because of the series portrayal in the media as of late. When I tell people I play Fire Emblem, some of them seem to think that I'm playing a dating simulator rather than a strategy game. I can't deny the fact that this bothers me to some degree.

[NekoKnight]

You're too sensitive, OP. It's one thing to seek validation for your opinions, but to let others' opinions affect your personal enjoyment of the game and series is foolish.

Personally, I rank Fates' story as the worst in the series, and not just because the devs inflated our expectations. It's absolutely atrocious story-telling and there are many, MANY threads on Serenes to explain why it fails. The gameplay, however is some of the best the series has to offer, especially in Conquest. The music is good, many of the aesthetics are good and the battle system has truly evolved. The characters can be a bit hit or miss but there is a lot of them, so you'll find at least a few you really like.

Play the rest of the series and you'll get a better appreciation for why people feel the way they do about Fates.

[Slyfox]

Fates is a fantastic set of games. The gameplay, the options it gives you (reclassing, weapons, supports, etc.), the music, the graphics, the art style (at times ridiculous, but always high quality nonetheless), etc. There is a lot to love in these games, and most people would agree.

However, most people also agree that the story is terrible. That's pretty much the only big complaint people have, most of the other complaints are fairly minor and can usually be overlooked. Story is something that is really important to many of us, and while it can be a huge bummer, it is outweighed by the sheer amount of good that Fates brought. We are just incredibly vocal about one bad thing, and even then there are plot points that some of us like.

Basically, if you enjoy the game, then enjoy it. There a good reasons to like Fates and they don't even have to be reasons that other people share. For example, I think Conquest is the least terribly written Fates game (compared to the other two routes, I'd say Conquest is even decent), but most people hate Conquest's story. I stand by my opinion though. Don't let peer pressure change that!

[Refa]

Hate the story, love Conquest's gameplay, hate Revelatons'. From my admittedly biased understanding, this seems to be the general consensus.

I appreciate Corrin's existence because she provides a good comparison point. I compare other main characters to Corrin and say "this is how you make a good character...and there's Corn Flakes of character development."

[Emerson]

I suppose I might add what little I can.

I enjoy Conquest a ton, although I can't play more than 2 Chapters in a sitting before getting slightly frustrated with my own incompetence.

I'm also a weirdo who loves the crap outta Birthright. I know the map design sucks, but the game is still really fun to casually play. Unlike a certain other path.

Thankfully, I really don't care about story in games for the most part. If I do look at story, it's only after playing the game. I suppose it's why I love Kid Icarus Uprising so much, as the story really takes a back seat the entire time outside of a few select Chapters.

Character dialogue and voice acting also takes a huge part in my enjoyment of games as well. Fates has it down... for the most part. I do completely hate a certain Priest, but mostly everyone's fine. Supports are good, although some feel like missed opportunities or just lack something. Plus, a good amount of character could have amazing and interesting supports, but they take a back seat to gimmicks a little too often. Namely Felicia...

Oh and most of the VAs are good. Few bad ones, but a good amount were great. Granted, we have most in the middle with a lot falling more towards bad...

[Thane]

I don't think it's fair to all of us who have spent a lot of time explaining in great detail what was wrong with Fates' story to chalk up our feelings to disappointment because it didn't live up to the hype. It's the single worst written video game I've ever personally played, and that anyone, anywhere, thought this was okay to release in this clearly unfinished state is actually offensive to me. The game's writing shows a clear lack of respect for the players, the video game industry as a whole and most importantly the developers themselves.

Most people who recognize my name here know of my stance on the matter, so I won't waste anyone's time repeating the same points I've made over and over again unless I'm asked for it, but to me the problem with the writing isn't just things like "bad ideas" - hell, the premise is absolutely amazing - but that it fails on every single level and that the narrative can barely even keep itself together only with some of the most awful, illogical, poorly explained and clearly desperate plot devices. The game is also completely lacking in agency and complexity to the point where most maps can be summarized as "they walked down a path, something happened, they were forced to fight". Couple that with the nonsensical character interactions, motivations and script and there's not much to salvage from the main story, and there are few supports that stick out to me.

As for the gameplay, I adore Conquest's gameplay, like everyone here has said already. It's a huge step up from Awakening and I'm really looking forward to seeing where they go from here. However, I think it was the wrong idea from the outset to create three different versions, as they're forced to spread themselves too thin in their attempts at trying to appeal to absolutely everyone - more Conquest quality maps could've worked if they had eased new players into it; there are better ways for newcomers to join the series - something I encourage wholeheartedly, I'm not saying this as some kind of elitist - than to create whole separate versions for them, effectively further dividing the fanbase which is already fairly separated into veterans and newcomers.

This overextension can be seen in Revelation, which does not have good gameplay at all. Solid mechanics, sure, but the maps are atrocious, gimmicky, horrendously paced and after a certain point completely lacking in any form of challenge even on Lunatic.

If you like Fates, then more power to you. You shouldn't let anyone's opinions on something affect your personal enjoyment of something - I love Awakening, and a fair chunk of the fanbase really dislikes it, but their feelings towards the game don't change mine, and the differences in opinion allow for some nice debates and discussions.

[Dualazi]

I absolutely adore fates overall.

As others have mentioned, I think the gameplay and map design is at an all-time high, and even after multiple playthroughs it's still rewarding to beat the harder levels and fun to try out new builds and strats, something exemplified by the PMU threads that crop up around here. I also really liked the change to weapon durability, as I was a filthy penny-pincher who would coast through prior games on iron weapons for as long as humanly possible, which simple wasn't fun. The new system gives a lot more versatility and thought to who needs what, and whether to give someone a steel weapon or an iron one.

The soundtrack is amazing, and I can't really think of any other 3DS title that entranced me as much with its sound. There're really too many good ones to into for the sake of brevity, but Thorn in You (roar) and End of All (all variants) always get me.

Totally subjective, but I really like the art design of the game, from Kozaki's character art to the ingame models. Thankfully some of the more ridiculous examples like the old knights/generals have been toned down, but it's still very much fantasy in its presentation.

The story is definitely the weak point, conquest in particular, while I found revelations/birthright to mostly be acceptable. However, what I do find strange because it doesn't happen much is that I personally feel that the cast and their motivations/interactions are really well done. The conversation between Ryoma and Corrin at the beginning of Conquest ch. 25 is great, and really sets the stage well I think. Most of the support conversations are enjoyable as well. The children mechanic is sort of hamfistedly returned, but I still love planning out their classes and stats, and barring the rehashed characters I mostly enjoyed their personalities and stories.

So yeah. The story wasn't anything to write home about but the game blew away my expectations in every other category so it's still one of my favorite games, and I'd recommend giving it a shot.

[Purikaman]

I know that feeling of loving something and find that a lot people hate that thin you love, I know it a bit too well... Some people will say that one should not allow other people opinions to change one opinion and enjoyment... And they are rigth, one shouldn't, but that sometimes is not that simple. There do exist people that are too sentive, people that does not have the emotional fortitude to handle criticism of something they love. I certainly one of those. But one just have to accept it, people have different opinions, rigth or wrong depending on who you ask but different nonetheless. Just hold onto your opinion, listen to others opinions, yes, but never lose yours, because is yours and from no one else. As for my actual opinion on Fates... I loved it, more than 700 put in that thing, loved the characters, loved the aesthetics, loved the music and loved the gameplay. It does have his flaws, the story is terrible in my opinion, and some maps are not that good, but overall I found it to pretty good.

[The DanMan]

I'd place it as middle of the road; it makes major strides forward in the gameplay department, but fails in the storytelling one.

[Jave]

When factoring in everything and my general enjoyment of the games, I'll say Fates overall is my second favorite (FE5 is still #1).

I agree that the story is pretty bad, but the Support convos and overall character interactions make up for it, as I really like the direction the localized series took since Shadow Dragon with the more natural dialogue the characters have (Tellius was absolutely atrocious in this aspect).

Fortunately I don't care about the story on a second playthrough, so I can still enjoy playing the games in the future.

[DragonFlames]

For one last time, I will detail my view on Fates, probably one of my personal biggest disappointments in terms of expectation vs. reality. Generally, Fates was the game I looked forward to the most in 2016. I was hyped up about it to no end, as evidenced by some of my posts here leading up to release. When it finally came out and I played the first six chapters, I was absolutely in love with it. I loved all the characters introduced until then (with one exception, but we'll get to that), I loved the story up to that point, I absolutely loved the gameplay (still do). Then it all went downhill. I should have seen the warning signs earlier and I was stupid to not have seen it beforehand. But I will now go into more detail on story and characters, since these two are things I have the most to say about, so bear with me.

Story

Let's get this out of the way first: I absolutely LOVE the premise behind Fates' story. They could have done so much with it, the single most mature Fire Emblem story yet, where they delve into the psychology behind a kingdom on the brink of ruin through poverty and an abusive ruler (Nohr) and a kingdom so decadent that the populace has developed a serious case of arrogance (Hoshido) and behind it all a mad Dragon instigating a war between the two (Valla). It had so, so much potential...

... and they wasted it for a male Royal wankfest. Everything the male Royals do and say in the story is praised like its said by God Himself and no one dares to call them out on bullshit decisions and/or words (more on that later).

Overall, I did enjoy the story of Fates, though there WERE parts that absolutely infuriated me. To list off:

• Xander's actions after Elise's death on Birthright (more on that in the section 'Characters')
• The reason behind the conquest of Hoshido
• Azura's involvement in all of it (which I will also get to later)

I liked the drama and tension the story built up during the two main paths. Even after the stupid reasoning for conquering Hoshido, there is still a lingering feeling of unease which the game does really well in delivering. The music grows more tense during these parts and the dialogue, the people you fight and even the maps themselves let you know that it wasn't entirely right to abandon one side in favour of the other. That's one of the times Fates does everything right, in my opinion, even though the reasoning behind it might be flawed or even outright stupid in parts. As my negative opinion on the Conquest path is tied to the character of Azura, I will discuss that trainwreck in another section. For now, know that I am NOT happy with the execution of Conquest at all.

On the Birthright route, that feeling of guilt is especially apparent. During the scenes that feature the Nohrian Royal family, you can see it slowly falling apart, which then culminates in Elise's ultimately pointless sacrifice. I consider Birthright to be the strongest of all three stories, since it at least seems like they tried to think everything through. Sure, there ARE blunders (Flora's death, Lillith's death, lack of an option to kill Takumi outright when he first appears as an enemy), but overall, Birthright has the best story out of all of them.

As you might have noticed, I have barely touched upon Revelation's story yet. Revelation is easily the most boring path, storywise. Nothing really interesting happens, Leo's and Xander's stupidity has increased tenfold, as did Corrin's and the last bit of the story is extremely rushed, probably because they wanted to fit everything into 28 chapters. If they made more, I feel like Revelation could have had the best story out of all three, but as it stands, it's more like a parody of the other two paths. After playing the Heirs of Fate DLC, I feel as if that should have been the true Revelation path, which unlocks automatically (!) after beating both Conquest and Birthright.

And then, of course, there is the UTTER lack of world-building. After playing through many RPGs with excellent world building (shout out to the Legend of Heroes' series, which by far has the best world-building present in any RPG), this is unacceptable to me.

Characters

Now to elaborate what I mean by 'Royal wankfest'.

Elise's death on the Birthright route is one of the most prominent examples where Xander pussies out and chooses death instead of making good on his duties as an older brother and he doesn't even TRY to fulfill his own little sister's dying wish, instead he pulls his metaphorical pants down and takes a metaphorical dump on her dead body.

And what does the story do? It still shows Xander as some kind of hero and doesn't make it clear that only a weak person would decide that way. That's nothing to say about Xander's insistence on following his clearly evil father's orders (seriously, the game doesn't even try to hide the fact that Garon is a villain), which he ALSO doesn't get reprimanded for. Instead, he's some kind of god on the battlefield and off of it, too. In every support, he gets showered with praise, how he is Nohr's 'strongest warrior' and how Nohr will go to the pits without him, same goes for Leo, by the way.

In some other games I've played there were characters similar to Xander, characters that choose the coward's way instead of trying to make up for their bad choices and all of these characters have been called cowards and similar things. They were NEVER painted in a good light.

Ryoma is at least willing to listen to reason, even though he too is a bit too quick to resort to violence, as evidenced by his actions in the Nohr version of chapter 6.

And that goes for all the Royals. All of them, Hoshidan or Nohrian, even their CHILDREN, have the mentality of 'kill first, ask questions later'. And they get praised for it. All other characters who have that mentality have that exact same mentality blow up in their face sometime in the story, but not the Royals. Whatever they do, its always the right thing and its always perfect. If anything, they are the true Mary Sue's of Fire Emblem.

At least Corrin gets called out on his actions during the Conquest route and they are almost enough to break his or her spirit. You see Corrin suffer for his/her decisions on both Conquest and Birthright and however naive he/she may be, the way they act during all of Fates' two main routes is like a normal human being would do. They don't do anything differently because no one told them how.

Now to the character that ruined Conquest and retroactively Birthright as well: Azura. Where do I even start with her? She is everything bad about Fates' story shoved into one of the stupidest, most selfish characters in any game I've ever played and that's saying something, since most RPG villains are selfish.

How about I start with the obvious: Her Ship Tease with Corrin. It is even more forced than it was with Chrom and Sumia and makes even less sense for it. It is pretty clear from the way her character is introduced and featured that the writers had a pretty serious hard-on for her, so much so that they even slipped it into Corrin's character for a sec in Conquest.

Which brings me to my next point: Conquest's entire second half and thus the deaths of Takumi and Ryoma and the utter traumatization of Sakura could have been avoided if Azura wasn't such a selfish slut. She could have fessed up and told Corrin the full story about Valla and Anankos right then and there, because, you know, they WERE there by that point in the game, but instead she decided not to and goes on what I can only assume is a quest of revenge against the Hoshidan Royal family. But nope, she decided it would be better to slaughter half of the Hoshidan population because its funny. And Corrin is thinking with his D (or V if you play as a female) and blindly obeys her.

From what I've read about Arete, she told Azura everything about Valla and died in the process due to the curse. Why couldn't Azura do the same, if we are supposed to see her as some kind of altruistic angel?

Or better yet, give you an entirely DIFFERENT incentive to conquer Hoshido. But that would make too much sense, now would it?

At least she suffers a major consequence for her silence and hilariously, that consequence is her death, the one thing she wanted to avoid by keeping the truth hidden. Karma is a b****, huh? *sadistic laughter*

I feel sorry for Rena Strober for having to lend her amazing voice talent to such a trashy character...

On to the other characters, then.

Some I really like, some I really hate, but the majority is plain unmemorable to me, which is one of Fates' greatest weaknesses. The supports aren't as good as they were in Awakening since most of the time the characters spend the majority of the supports being mean to each other. Character-wise, even though I have my favourites, Fates is probably one of the weakest Fire Emblem games, along with Sacred Stones.

The characters I hate are:

• Takumi
• Xander
• Kiragi
• Leo
• Siegbert
• Forrest
• Shiro
• Azura
• Shigure
• Percy
• Hayato
• Soleil
• Caeldori

The characters I like are:

• Hana
• Corrin
• Odin (by virtue of being Owain)
• Selena (by virtue of being Severa)
• Beruka
• Kana
• Nyx
• Velouria
• Ophelia
• Kaden
• Keaton
• Selkie
• Midori
• Kaze
• Saizo
• Mozu
• Elise
• Sakura

The others I either don't care much about or I outright forgot they existed.

Closing remarks

In conclusion, I still enjoy Fates somewhat, though my enjoyment has waned a bit due to the issues I mentioned above. And those issues are the exact reason why I consider Fates to be my personal biggest disappointment for 2016. I expected more from IS, who have been showing several times that they CAN produce a good story (the Tellius saga, Blazing Sword among others), but they butchered it with Fates' story and I sure don't have high hopes for the next game, considering the tendencies shown in this one.

If you read through all of that, you have my highest appreciation.

Edited September 3, 2016 by DragonFlames

[Slyfox]

To be fair, Garon decided to invade Hoshido. Corrin didn't really do anything wrong there. Exposing Garon as evil by putting him on the Hoshidan throne? Making the best of a terrible situation.

I see three missteps in Conquest, none of them started by Corrin actually.

- Betraying Kotaro

- Betraying Zola

Those two things could have ended the war much sooner, with far less casualties.

- Azura only showing Corrin the crystal ball... what the heck. In Birthright, she shows Leo, and he gets things done! Why couldn't she show all the royal siblings!? I'm absolutely sure Elise, Leo and Camilla would have believed her. Xander believing her might be doubtful though.

Anyway, while I hate Corrin, s/he only went along with what other people decided in Conquest. Terrible for a playable character, yes, but for some reason people blame Conquest Corrin for the huge mistakes that the other characters have made.

[Thane]

Anyway, while I hate Corrin, s/he only went along with what other people decided in Conquest. Terrible for a playable character, yes, but for some reason people blame Conquest Corrin for the huge mistakes that the other characters have made.

"For some reason"?

People complain about Conquest Corrin the most for quite a few reasons. The first ones that come to mind are that they in chapter six return to Nohr, the country that is invading an innocent, peaceful nation, ruled by the man who was directly responsible for the murder of his two "real" parents, without any form of plan, directly supporting Garon in what he is doing and then gets upset or surprised when they're forced to do things they don't like or when people complain about Garon before chapter 15.

Conquest Corrin is not some kind of innocent bystander caught in a crossfire; they actively support the evil side in spite of knowing all the horrible things they're responsible for. If that is not a "huge mistake", I don't know what is.