Opinions on that Fire Emblem Echoes SoV Character #1-#52 (Check the OP)

[Etrurian emperor]

Mycen

Good design, well voiced, decent chemistry with some other characters. I like him. I do think they should have shown more of his and Rudolf's plotting though.

Boey

I really like Boey. He's a very versatile character. Boey can be the calm voice of reason in Celica's group, the comic relief when needed and also Mae's bicker buddy. He takes each of these roles without any of them conflicting with another. 
Despite having to share so much spotlight with the widely beloved Mae Boey never really gets overshadowed by her. His own more low key, cowardly and kinda sarcastic personality nicely compliments that of Mae.
The only complaint I have in the personality department is that he should have had a bit more conversations with Celica. 

Rinea

I don't really mind the girl but I do think its fair to say she objectively fails as a character. Rinea is supposed to bring out Berkut's better side but because all he does is snap and yell at her this never really happens. 

[Interdimensional Observer]

6 hours ago, epilepsyduck said:

As a unit, Excalibur is pretty much always a guarantee of unit viability, especially for Sages, and while he started to taper off a bit towards the end he never felt truly useless like some units did.

...Except for the fact that he gets it as level 18 Mage/7 Sage! That's extremely slow for a spell which isn't worth the super long wait and which everyone else gets so much sooner. I doubt Boey will even get to promotion by the Mila Temple (after that I find my hanger-ons drop off in usefulness), much less ever learn Excalibur. Nomah is essentially a freshly 12 promoted Boey at base (except with Excalibur). Sure Boey turns out better in the long run, but I don't see Boey getting much EXP in Act 4.

[vanguard333]

Mycen:

Actually a little disappointing. I was expecting him to actually act like a grandpa to Alm. Instead he acts like more like a distant mentor to Alm. Where's him actually caring about Alm? The support conversation was alright, but I feel Mycen should have been at least a little apologetic. I understand Alm forgiving him, but there needed to be a bit more cause-and-effect (he justifiably felt extremely deceived and sorrowful; that doesn't necessarily go away, but people can still find ways to forgive). But Mycen did nothing to show he felt apologetic or even felt like he needed forgiving! That sickens me far more that Alm not holding a grudge. I know what they were trying to do with his character, and they did a lot of good. I just wish they did a better job in-story of showing that he actually cared. Only the memory prism, and the support conversations (which could have been better) ever gave any indication.

Also, what was with his sudden disappearances and reappearances? That could have been done a lot better.

Boey:

A really good character actually, and a good mage. I liked his interactions, his personality, and I liked him and Mae.

Boey: …Er, you’re headed back to the island, right?

Mae: …Yeah.

Boey: Then that’s where I’m going as well.

Mae: Huh? Wait, what’s that mean?

Boey: Are you really such a dope that you can’t figure it out?

Mae: WAAAAAAT?!

Absolutely hilarious...

Rinea:

I don't know what to say... I like her character, and characters can still be great and plot-relevant even if they mainly interact with only one person (Horatio in Sakespeare's Hamlet comes to mind). I do agree that they should've have done a better job using her to show Berkut's better side, but I like how their interactions helped show how much he was spiraling. Am I the only person who likes that Rinea forgave Berkut? Am I the only one here that likes when stories have characters forgive each other? Rinea struck me as one of those sweet characters that can almost never be angry; only sad. In my opinion, It was perfectly within character for her. And, even if forgiveness were out of character, Berkut was on his death bed, regretting pretty much every decision he'd made, and his sanity was grasping at straws. She told him what he needed to hear in order to actually die peacefully. Why wouldn't she do that?

[Erureido]

Day 6 is now over, and with that, we are now onto Day 7.

Today's characters that we will discuss are Delthea, Est, and Halcyon.

What is your opinion on these three characters?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Delthea: As a character, Delthea is alright to me. Bright and cheerful, but also quite arrogant because of how talented she is with magic. She has moments where her behavior can get grating at times, yet she does have some good moments. Her interactions with Luthier being one example of such; her yelling "shut up" at him was a bit uncalled for her, but it's clear that she does love him a lot. Heck, even Clair managed to get Delthea to admit that. 

Unit-wise, she was easily the best mage in the army. Her Attack and Speed stats are astoundingly high. Though she can't learn any 3+ range spells like Thunder, I easily fixed that issue by giving her a Mage Ring. From there, she became a force to be reckoned with. Delthea + Mage Ring = Magic Rocket Launcher. She was extremely clutch in most of the late-game maps. She finished off those troublesome Bow Knights in the second-to-last map before the Rudolph one, she managed to land the final blow on Rudolph herself, she was key in defeating Rinea and weakening Berkut in the Act 5 battle, and she was one of the units that killed the mid-boss Dragon in the Thabes Labyrinth. She also tanks really well against opposing Arcanists and Withes. In all, she was one of the best units in the game from my experience. 

Her voice acting is fine and fits her personality. Her design just screams "lolli" to me, with the addition of the "fang-smile" commonly seen in anime. Eh, I'm a sucker for the "fang-smile," so that's cool in my book.

Est: Brianna Knickerbocker nailed Est's joyful personality perfectly, making Est one of the more enjoyable characters to listen to from voice-acting alone. She is not my favorite of the Pegasus Sisters, but I do enjoy her sociable and happy personality. Her supports were fun to read.

Unit-wise, she was the best of the Pegasus Sisters from my experience. Yes, she starts vastly under leveled, but I grinded her up so that she was even with her sisters, and from there, Est truly shined. Her Defenses were solid, and so was her Attack stat. She had the most utility, and was thus ready to adapt to most situations. Her best use was killing Terrors that stood in her way.

Not much to say about her design. Looks rather basic for a Pegasus Knight.

Halcyon: Yes, we're continuing the trend of rating those story-relevant non-unit characters that were in SF character poll a while back. While his only real relevance was in Act 4 to let Celica speak her Alm and then power him up, I did enjoy what we got of him on screen and what we learn of him. Turns out he was the previous leader of the Duma Faithful, but Jedah basically overthrew him out of jealousy. Since then, Halcyon stayed in the Sage's Hamlet, and he protected the village using his magic. We learn that he raised Conrad growing up. Apparently, Halcyon was a strict guy, at least if Conrad's base conversations are anything to go by. Yet, Halcyon still cared for him like a son by giving him basic life necessities. I think it would've been cool to have a Memory Prism featuring the two characters. That way, we could not only get some insight into Conrad's life growing up, but also more on Halcyon's character as well.

Speaking of which, a thought just crossed my mind. How awesome would it have been if Halcyon was a recruitable unit? I would love to see a battle conversations between him and Jedah, where Halcyon could get revenge for what Jedah did to him back then. 

Halcyon's design looks pretty nice. His staff looks intricate yet cool, the purple robes have a nice, sagely feel to them, and his beard looks good.

Here's a fun fact: Halcyon is voiced by Revali from Breath of the Wild! Well, it is Sean Chiplock in actuality, but the man did voice both Halcyon and Revali. With Halcyon, Chiplock proves yet again what an awesome voice actor he is (yes, I loved his voice work with Revali because of how he really fit that character's personality; it's for that reason I'd go as far saying Revali was the best voice-acted character in the game). Halcyon has a nice, sagely tone to his voice that is pleasant to listen to.

Edited August 19, 2017 by Erureido

[property of nuvelle]

Delthea: I can see why people dislike her as a condescending brat, but I like her. I think she's pretty cute. I'm glad they clothed the loli. Also, she was definitely the best mage on Alm's side, even though she's only competing against two others.

Est: Not Catria. Don't care much.

Jk, I think she was alright. Her design was pretty cute and she was second best flier between the whitewings.

Halcyon: Eh, don't care really.

[bethany81707]

Delthea: I think the only reason she doesn't steal Clair's spot as #1 contributor is because she comes so late into the game that Clair's got two extra acts of slaughter to buff up her score. Once she gets going, nothing within 4 spaces of her survives, and next to nothing can match her range. She's a pretty funny character, but not one I'd listen to a lot. "Is it OK for the goddess to pick favourites like this?" basically sums up her character.

Est: The Whitewings are starting to stop being a vague blob of pegasus rampage, and Est is the good one. It helps that there's always a Cantor at the graveyard on my way back from Grieth to train her up. I think I fell in love with "Am I crazy or just crazy lucky?".

Halcyon: At least she's not literally a generic character with a name duct-taped on, but he's no less forgettable. Kinda weird, too, with the plot, and doesn't even give Alm enough range on his bow to make it feel worthwhile to give him one beyond "I prefer range-play" (which is why I don't like Dread Fighters).

[Armagon]

Delthea: One of my favorite characters. Bright and cheerful, but also spoiled. Can see why her being spoiled would upset people but i personally don't mind it. I mean, she IS 13 after all, and she was born with a natural talent. It's not something that would be out-of-character. Despite how she constantly rants on her brother, she does actually care for him, even though she denies it. Her design is pretty cute too. As a unit, she is God-tier. She starts out really fragile but once she starts to level up, she begins to kill everything. During the Thabes Labyrinth, i gave her a fully forged Ladyblade, adding a +10 boost to her already amazing attack.

Est: Nice girl. Her character is pretty decent, though that comes from the fact that she's appeared in multiple games. Of course,SoV is the first time we get to hear her actually speak (well, technically Heroes but you know what i mean). Her voice fits her well and she's got a pretty great design. I haven't actually seen all of her supports, but i like how cheerful she is. As a unit, mmm, she's alright. The ironic thing is, i tend to use Est-types in other FE games such as Sophia and Amelia, but i've never really used Est herself. She's fine as a unit, but Palla's just better. Especially in this game where Falcon Knights+Blessed Lance=ultimate Terror slayer. I like how her ending, along with the other Whitewings, referenced their achievements in FE3/12.

Spoiler

Now if only Est's FE3/12 ending was as good as her FE15 ending. Because for whatever reason, IS just had her vanish at the end of FE3/12. IS why? Stop it. I hate it when characters disappear in their endings when it's out of character for them.

1 hour ago, Erureido said:

Est: Looks rather basic for a Pegasus Knight.

To be fair, Est's design is just Hidari's version of her previous designs. Est's design was pretty basic to begin with but so are most Archanean character designs, even after several updates.

Halcyon: He at least gets points for being the one to promote Alm. His design is unique enough to where i wish he was a playable character. He certainly would've made a better mage than Nomah. Plus, i feel that the game needed more playable Rigelians. Because we have Alm, Saber, Tatiana, Sonya, and Leon. That's five playable Rigelians. Zeke doesn't count because he's Grustian. Silque and Conrad don't count either because, while they are both of Rigelian descent, they were both born in Zofia. Having Halcyon be playable would've given us insight on how the Duma Faithful were like before Jedah took over. I suppose we kinda get that with Tatiana but i honestly think Tatiana's church worships Mila instead. One of Tatiana's quotes is "The Mother is with me." So yeah, we don't really get to know what the Duma Faithful was like prior to Jedah taking over and i think having Halcyon be playable would've fixed that. For the FE game with the best amount of worldbuilding, we know barely anything about the Duma Faithful when Halcyon was in control.

[Thane]

Delthea

I know, she's a kid and all that, but they didn't make her very fun or engaging to listen to, so I don't really care about her. I would've liked seeing her free spirit being expanded upon, and the responsibilities of a mage being explored in greater detail so that we understand why she wants to get away from it so badly. She's also got arguably the worst epilogue in the game aside from Faye, so it didn't feel like all the time spent with her amounted to anything.

Est

Cute kid, but uh, how did she end up in Valentia, again? She was nabbed by pirates, right? How far out was she anyway? Regardless, not particularly complex or engaging, but she's alright. She's no Catria though.

Edited August 19, 2017 by Thane

[epilepsyduck]

Delthea

Adorable bratty magic kids are another character type I'm fond of, and Delthea provides plenty of that. She bounces pretty well off her brother Luthier in their limited screentime together, I feel. She's also very powerful, especially once she hits Priestess and can get some good swords to equip. I just wish she didn't have both Aura and Ragnarok, since once she learns the latter there's rarely any reason to cast the former anymore. A Thunder or Saggitae spell would've been nice to have instead, but maybe that would've made her spell list a little too good.

Est

I didn't give a fuck about the Whitewings before Echoes came around, but I'm glad it did because now I see what I've been missing out on all this time. Est is actually probably my least favorite of the three, but I still appreciate her as part of the trio and she did ultimately become the strongest of the bunch, and only a hair behind Clair for strongest Pegasus Knight overall. Plus it gives me someone around Genny's age to ship Genny with, instead of shipping her with a literal grown man like some nasty folks seem obsessed with doing.

Halcyon

I nearly forgot who this guy even was. You may as well call him "Alm's promotion" and be done with it. He's got potentially interesting backstory stuff to work with, but since the game never really explores any of that it goes to waste. Yet another NPC who would've been right at home as a playable unit, and yet another waste of potential.

Edited August 19, 2017 by epilepsyduck

[HylianBelmont]

Alm - He's... okay as a lord. But he's not my favourite however. Because as some people as said, he kinda undermines the whole "the station of your birth doesn't matter" theme. Which does lower my opinion of him a bit. I don't hate him but I definitely like Lords such as Eirika, Ephraim, Micaiah, and Corrin a lot more though. But yes, I think I would've liked him a lot more if he WAS closer to how he was portrayed in that Awakening DLC. Because he would've contrasted with Celica a lot more.

Celica - I do like her honestly! She has a pleasant voice and feels much more genuinely flawed compared to Alm. And I love her relationship with her brother Conrad haha.

Forsyth - He's a lovable goofball really, and his dynamic with Python is also pretty entertaining IMO.

Valbar - What else I can say? He's a really cool guy with a great voice by Kyle Hebert (Honestly it's impressive to me because Validar, Frederick and Valbar don't sound ANYTHING alike?) 

Tatiana - I don't think much of her admittedly, but she DOES have a pretty lovely design and voice. So that's something!

Atlas - Gotta love him! He's such a sweet guy IMO, and his supports with Celica are pretty nice as well. 

Faye - I'm actually netural towards her overall, but I honestly find it insulting towards Tharja and Camilla when they get compared to Faye honestly. But that's all I'll say about that really.

Nomah - I wish he had more depth honestly. He has a great design but his supports with Celica are just... odd to me. 

Berkut - He's a decent villain for what he is. But I REALLY disagree with the sentiment that he's "better than all the other 3DS FE villains combined" I mean really? BETTER than Gangrel, Walhart and Anankos? I respect the opinion mind you, but I just can't see it personally.

Luthier - He's a pretty cute dork I'd say. And his English voice is also well-done and distinctive. So personally I like the man!

Kamui - He's not the worst character in the game but eh. You ain't anywhere near as cute or as likable as the Fates character who happens to share their JP name with you buddy *puts up Dracoshield*

Irma - She's alright for what she is really. Not much else to say.

Mycen - He looks badass, and has a badass voice to match. But with that said I didn't like him as much as I thought I was going to. Still he's decent enough IMO.

Boey - Freaking LOVE this guy! His supports with Mae? Great. His voice acting and dialogue? Spot-on. Can't think of a single negative thing to say about him honestly.

Rinea - I agree with some people here that she COULD have had more characterisation. Aside from that, she's another one of those "serviceable for what she is" characters to me.

Delthea - She's pretty funny and likable IMO! Granted she's also a bit of a brat, but as others have mentioned it does make sense for her age really. 

Est - I love her voice and supports with Catria, but aside from that I'm not the biggest fan of her? She's alright as a character but she's no Palla really.

Halcyon - I mean it's nice to see a member of the Duma Faithful (along with Conrad and Tatiana I suppose) who isn't a cartoony scumbag. But honestly I would've preferred if he had joined instead of Nomah. Because he could've offered a lot more insight into what the religion was like before Jedah took over.

 

Edited August 19, 2017 by HylianBelmont
Wanted to add my opinions on the other characters.

[Fire Emblem Fan]

Delthea: I was prepared to bench her after I recruited her, I just wasn't sure I wanted to work on another unit since I had a pretty good core team already. But then she seemed like a beast, and did indeed turn out to be a beast, ultimately replacing Kliff on my core team. As a character, I like her. She has good moments with Luthier and Clair, showing a likeable character beneath the bratty facade. Her design is okay, the fang-smile had me fooled into thinking she was a dragon or something for a little while.

Est: I've always liked Est's design. From Shadow Dragon, to Awakening's DLC, to Echoes. And now with the characterization she gets from Echoes, I can finally say that I like her as a character, too! She's cheerful and likeable, at least up to this point (I say that because of what happens with her and Abel, which still leaves me scratching my head in mild confusion). I didn't use her much on the field though, at least not as much as her sisters. But I know she is a good unit, she just needs some training!

Halcyon: Like most of the other NPC characters, I just kinda shrug at him. He would have been more interesting if he'd been in the story more, or a playable character. 

[Armagon]

2 hours ago, HylianBelmont said:

Berkut - He's a decent villain for what he is. But I REALLY disagree with the sentiment that he's "better than all the other 3DS FE villains combined" I mean really? BETTER than Gangrel, Walhart and Anankos? I respect the opinion mind you, but I just can't see it personally.

Ok, i can understand Gangrel and Walhart. I personally like those two myself, with Walhart being among my top 5 favorite villains. But i can't understand why someone would put Berkut lower than Anankos. The thing with Anankos is that he basically ruins the entire point of Fates to the point where i ask myself "why do Conquest and Birthright even exist"? He made for a pretty interesting boss fight but that's honestly all there is to him.

[HylianBelmont]

1 hour ago, Armagon said:

Ok, i can understand Gangrel and Walhart. I personally like those two myself, with Walhart being among my top 5 favorite villains. But i can't understand why someone would put Berkut lower than Anankos. The thing with Anankos is that he basically ruins the entire point of Fates to the point where i ask myself "why do Conquest and Birthright even exist"? He made for a pretty interesting boss fight but that's honestly all there is to him.

Fair enough, but I never thought he "ruined" the very existence of Birthright and Conquest. But that's just me really.

Agreed on the boss fight part however. It's up there with Radiant Dawn's final boss for me, haha.

[Sentinel07]

1 hour ago, HylianBelmont said:

Fair enough, but I never thought he "ruined" the very existence of Birthright and Conquest. But that's just me really.

Agreed on the boss fight part however. It's up there with Radiant Dawn's final boss for me, haha.

Honestly, I found the boss fight with Anankos to be very disappointing. It was basically all spectacle and no bite. To me, a good final boss tests the player with many of the things they've encountered throughout the game. RD's entire endgame does a very good job of throwing many different things at the player over it's many maps, and the battle with Duma is quite exhillerating.

But Anankos' fight....for how much it's built up is exceedingly barebones. There's pretty much no strategy to it, Anankos throws nothing special at you, and it really comes off as missed potential (like Fates as a whole). I mean, for example, Anankos is said to be one of the progenitors of the Dragon Vein ability. Why the heck does he not use it? Why does his attack have no kind of special damage to it (with how Fates introduced buffing/debuffing). Why does the map have no obstacles and is instead barren? The only praise I can think of is that they fixed some of these problems in the Heirs of Fate version of the fight.

As for Anankos as a villain....honestly I think he might be my least favorite villain in all of gaming.

Now, I'm not saying Anankos has the worst personality and backstory for a villain. There are plenty more villains who do worse at that, but what makes Anankos the most intolerable for me is what he represents. Basically, he represents everything wrong with Fates' story. Any sense of tension and drama between Nohr and Hoshido is just played off as something he does, like he's one big "easy" button for the writers to blame everything on. Why is Garon causing war? Anankos made him. Why does Takumi become the final boss of Conquest? Anankos did it. And so on and so forth.

Basically, Fates had the perfect set-up for a morally gray story that explored what war is like for two countries, yet Anankos single-handedly diffuses any of that for the sole purpose of giving the player one big enemy to kill and everything is fine. In a way, it's almost ironic that, at the end of Heirs of Fate, he asks the characters to forget he was ever a thing. I sure wish I could forget.

And....rant over. :D

[Medeus]

Alm: A mixed bag, I love his dorkiness and in terms of the archetype he typically represents out of the lords, I enjoy him more then most of them. With that said, I do feel his character doesn't work well with the themes of the game and sometimes he does come off as overidealized at the expense of some of the characters around him.

Celica: I'll just say this: I liked her before Act 4 and I like the idea behind the flaw, but I feel the game does a poor job making Jedah's bargain look good when everything after it shows he's not a man to be trusted (the two Hamlet NPCs, Jedah himself in his battle map, etc.) and as a result makes Celica come off as more foolish then she actually should've.

Forsyth: Has a great support with Python and Lukas and I do enjoy his drive to accomplish something in an environment that doesn't allow for such growth.

Berkut: Had the building blocks to be a great character (ex. Ian Sinclair's performance), but ultimately gets wasted since the story doesn't give him any moments to showcase his strengths as a general or his positive points as a person before his final moments. So at the end when he goes off the deep end, I just didn't find myself caring for what happened to him since he didn't leave enough of an impression to care.

Rinea: She has no other traits or meaningful interactions and basically only exists to give Berkut a sympathetic side, which she manages to fail at due to Berkut constantly lashing out at her whenever she tries to calm him down. So not a very effective character to say the least.

Delthea: She comes off as a bit bratty in her supports, but I still find her likeable since she does have a decent moment in her base conversation and her battle lines are enjoyable.

Est: I love her voice actress and I find her interactions with her older sisters pretty charming (though Palla's A is cruel if you've played Mystery). Other then that there's not much else to her, but it's enough for the type of character she is.

Halcyon: An interesting character that gets wasted by the plot doing nothing with him. He could've been a great character for us to get a viewpoint into the pre-Jedah Duma Faithful, understanding Duma and Conrad more as characters, or just in general making him more interesting as a person, but the story doesn't tap into any of that. Instead it just uses him to as Alm's promotion and Celica's cell phone and nothing else comes from him, which is a shame.

[HylianBelmont]

4 hours ago, Sentinel07 said:

Honestly, I found the boss fight with Anankos to be very disappointing. It was basically all spectacle and no bite. To me, a good final boss tests the player with many of the things they've encountered throughout the game. RD's entire endgame does a very good job of throwing many different things at the player over it's many maps, and the battle with Duma is quite exhillerating.

But Anankos' fight....for how much it's built up is exceedingly barebones. There's pretty much no strategy to it, Anankos throws nothing special at you, and it really comes off as missed potential (like Fates as a whole). I mean, for example, Anankos is said to be one of the progenitors of the Dragon Vein ability. Why the heck does he not use it? Why does his attack have no kind of special damage to it (with how Fates introduced buffing/debuffing). Why does the map have no obstacles and is instead barren? The only praise I can think of is that they fixed some of these problems in the Heirs of Fate version of the fight.

As for Anankos as a villain....honestly I think he might be my least favorite villain in all of gaming.

Now, I'm not saying Anankos has the worst personality and backstory for a villain. There are plenty more villains who do worse at that, but what makes Anankos the most intolerable for me is what he represents. Basically, he represents everything wrong with Fates' story. Any sense of tension and drama between Nohr and Hoshido is just played off as something he does, like he's one big "easy" button for the writers to blame everything on. Why is Garon causing war? Anankos made him. Why does Takumi become the final boss of Conquest? Anankos did it. And so on and so forth.

Basically, Fates had the perfect set-up for a morally gray story that explored what war is like for two countries, yet Anankos single-handedly diffuses any of that for the sole purpose of giving the player one big enemy to kill and everything is fine. In a way, it's almost ironic that, at the end of Heirs of Fate, he asks the characters to forget he was ever a thing. I sure wish I could forget.

And....rant over. :D

You basically just gave me a much longer version of the reply I got earlier but yeah. I CAN understand your perspective even if I don't really agree with it honestly.

But I just can't agree with the "undermines the conflict" part. You may as well say that Grima undermined the conflict with Plegia and Ylisse by simply "existing" when what they actually did was take advantage of tensions and other problems ALREADY there.

Besides, it was a combination of BOTH Takumi's own flaws and Anankos's manipulations that lead to him being the final boss. So it was still him in a way, really. Anyway, I don't want this thread to be full of this discussion so if you want to continue this, then we could do it in a PM or something. If not then that's fine as well I suppose XD

[Ertrick36]

On 8/18/2017 at 0:43 AM, Thane said:

  Reveal hidden contents

"Had" really is the key word here, and I think the people crying about SJW's are just a vocal minority. The problem with Dragon Age is that it suffers from a serious identity crisis, trying to be every game and genre at once. Inquisition tried to implement elements from so many games that the gameplay never felt like its own; it was flat, boring, and played like a single player MMORPG. Like, pretty much all the side quests were about collecting, killing or exploring in the most tedious fashion possible, unlike in Origins where you had a bunch of branching paths. Inquisition merely pays lip service to the idea of choice - your actions don't have any consequences, and you're on a collision course for one of the worst villains I've ever seen.

What bothers me is that Thedas has so much history and lore, yet all they do is pile on the mysteries without addressing the questions we already have. Dragon Age II was a prequel to Inquisition, which in turn is effectively a prequel to the fourth game. 

As for Andromeda, that whole game was just a mess. I'm not even talking about the bugs and the animations, I'm talking about how utterly devoid of creativity and passion the story and characters were, written without ever realizing what made Mass Effect good in the first place. 

So yeah, as much as I want Dragon Age IV to deliver on all the hype and all the mysteries left to explore in Thedas, I've got very low expectations. Sigh, and it's going to be set in Tevinter...I dearly hope they don't mess this up. The Andromeda series is probably dead now after the horrible reception and the studio responsible for it was merged with an EA one, or something.

 

Opinion is subjective and all that, but I am glad to hear opinions that aren't rooted in the lack of polish or other... flawed roots.

The fate of Andromeda reminds me of what happened to the team behind Soul Calibur V.  Or allegedly, anyway.  My sources come from some random, salty internet users, so they are anything but 100% valid.

On 8/18/2017 at 0:43 AM, Thane said:

So, Azura, then? All she does is spout exposition without a shred of personality of human emotion, her song is the plot equivalent of the card in Monopoly that gets you out of jail, and she leads you on a quest to defeat yet another generic dragon after uniting all the siblings.

She is very close to what I was thinking of, metaphorically.  I was more referring to if they took it further and made a literal interpretation of these tropes.  So like, Azura would be like Presea from ToS or Fi from Zelda, where she would be so robotic that she'd even talk in a monotone voice while performing precise calculations/spouting probabilities, and she would actually turn into a sword for Corrin to use like how Megatron turns into a gun for Starscream.  And the royal brothers would need to go to the four corners of the world to acquire four uniquely styled Egg McMuffins to power up the Azura-Sword.  It'd just be a mockery of its own dry and overused tropes.  And, imo, a much more interesting game.

4 hours ago, Sentinel07 said:

Honestly, I found the boss fight with Anankos to be very disappointing. It was basically all spectacle and no bite. To me, a good final boss tests the player with many of the things they've encountered throughout the game. RD's entire endgame does a very good job of throwing many different things at the player over it's many maps, and the battle with Duma is quite exhillerating.

I'm both glad and unsurprised I'm not the only one who found that battle to be so disappointing.

I wish it was more like Heirs of Fate's final battle.  Hell, I generally wish a lot of Revelation was more like Heirs of Fate, particularly the maps in Valla.  Or they could've taken their cues from Conquest.  Revelation was just a mish-mash of ideas without any concept for how to actually utilize them in a way that's fun and meaningful.

As for story...  I really don't like the stories of CQ or Rev, but I enjoyed BR the first time through well enough.  After the fact, I don't care because I just skip through all the cutscenes.  CQ's the only one I can't bring myself to play through once more because of the story.

 

Anyway, enough talk of Fates and sci-fi; time to discuss the Pillars of Ancient Valentian Combat.

Delta Airlines

It's funny that these games seem to always press children into war.  Granted, she's a teenager (barely), and probably considered an adult by Valentian standards (or is at least old enough to be a squire), but still.

It's ridiculous how non-chalant she is about fighting.  She isn't crying or screaming about how she doesn't want to fight.  It's just like, "UGH, why's my lousy brother trying to get me to practice magic?"  In fact, she outright states that she's glad to fight for Mr. Perfect Emperor.  Generally speaking, she's just really comical.  I don't get quite as irritated by her as some do, but I'm also not the biggest fan of her.  Probably because she's a teenager, and ever since my teenhood I've had an aversion to teenagers.  And kids.  I'd make a terrible father, thanks for asking.

She's okay.  She seems to be another one of those characters a lot of people seem to either love or hate.  I don't feel strongly about her.

Best Est

The first Whitewing, and in my opinion the lesser of the three.  Also, another teenager, though I shouldn't point that out every time because I'd be repeating myself a lot, and I'm pretty confident she's an adult by Archanean standards at least.

Anyway, those familiar with the Archanean games know the drill with her; she gets captures, the other two sisters join you fairly early on, and when you finally do get her, she's somehow unharmed though also supremely underleveled.

I find the idea of the Est archetype strange because most "latecomer" units are there mostly to serve as lesser replacements for your early units that might have died.  Yet Ests start so underleveled that if you're needing to rely on reserves, you might not even be able to get her up to speed with the rest, and if you aren't relying on reserves, she's just a redundant unit that's tedious to train up.  So the only people who'd use her are people who simply just want to use her... or those who want to utilize the Triangle Attack.

As for her character...  She bounces well enough off of the other two sisters.  In fact, "bounces" might be a key word here, because she's got lots of energy.  I love that she always is trying to involve Catria in her shop's business, handing her some of the trifles she manages to get her hands on and telling her all these tall tales about how the items will give Catria good luck or whatever.  It was a trend started in New Mystery that continued into this game, so props to them for keeping it consistent by continuing it (retroactively) in this game.

HAL-cyon

Not a homicidal AI, but another device character.  Nothing interesting to say about him that I haven't already said about Irma.  He's mentioned, like, mid-way through Celica's route?  And all he ever does for you is he has you contact Alm and gives him super powers (AKA the ability to promote).  Slightly less forgettable than Irma.  Might have had potential, but the writers clearly never intended for him to be someone with a big character arc in the first place.

[Erureido]

Day 7 is now over, and with that, we are now onto Day 8!

Today's characters that we will discuss are Tobin, Conrad, and Slayde.

What is your opinion on these three characters?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'll give my thoughts on them straight away.

Tobin: One of my favorite characters in the game, and my favorite out of all the Alm villagers. He is a person who initially joins the army just to provide money for his family, but as the story goes, we see how he learns what other value there is to being a soldier. Tobin has plenty of great dialogue throughout the story, with the highlights easily being his interactions with Gray; together, the two had some of the funniest moments in the game. I also relate to Tobin the most out of all the Alm villagers, particularly because Tobin and I share similar insecurities. In his final base conversation, it is revealed that Tobin has an inferiority complex going on with Alm. Tobin admits he had a desire to surpass Alm for a while, and that is something I can relate to when I was amongst my friends a while back. That very trait also reminds me of one of Takumi, another character who I adore (come to think of it, another similarity both Takumi and Tobin have is that they are both Archers, if we're going off Tobin's canon class that is).

I made my Tobin an Archer, and we proved to be a valuable unit. He got lucky scoring many critical hits early in the game, and while he didn't score as much criticals as Python in the late game, Tobin continued to prove himself well when he was a Bow Knight.

His design is rather basic, but I do like it a lot. Simple, yet is stands out in a good way. Also, is it just me, or does he remind me of Eren Jaeger a bit based on looks alone? I don't know, it's probably the fact both have brown hair and the same hairstyle.

Tobin's voice-acting was also a pleasure to listen to. Many of Tobin's lines are some of my favorites in the game. There's his critical quotes like "You and me!", and then you have his level up quotes. The muscles quote is hilarious, but the line that really takes the cake is when he clears his throat in an annoyed fashion and then says, "Umm..." It fits his given portrait perfectly!

Conrad: My third favorite character in Fire Emblem Echoes. It's rare in video games to have a badass mask-wearing character actually be a dork and anxious individual on the inside, and Conrad is one of those rare individuals. Reading his supports and base conversations was when I really started to like him. He is quite the charming character when he is dorky. Conrad is also a very sensitive individual as evidenced by his supports with Celica, and I'm quite the sensitive guy myself, so I relate to him (yes, I'm drawn to sensitive characters. Just look at Forsyth and Takumi and you'll know why I adore them both). He also has quite the sorrowful backstory that made me attached to him: poor kid was bullied as a child because of his mother being Rigelian, but Celica and Liprica were the only two people that treated him kindly. I also liked how his bond with Celica actually felt genuine to that sibling and it never got creepy or unsettling in any way, something that is refreshing to see after coming out from Fates where we saw how Camilla interacts with Corrin (that relationship was bleh). Come to think of it, for a new character introduced in Echoes that has a close bond with one of our main lords, I enjoyed Conrad's bonding with Celica better than Faye did to Alm. 

Now, I won't deny Conrad does have issues. These problems arise from how he was handled in the plot. In all of his main story appearances prior to joining Celica's army, he was just a walking deux-ex-machina every time he showed up. He manages to knock some sense into Celica with a good slap after she almost willingly decides to throw her life away thanks to Dolth's suggestion. This scene is supposed to be Conrad's big moment, but it ultimately lost its significance when Celica decided to throw her life away anyway once everyone met Jedah on top of Duma Tower (even Conrad called out that issue when he said, "Anthiese, you made a promise to me, remember?"). I did like Conrad's line when he slap-talked Saber and Boey to fight the Moghalls instead of chickening out. I also wish Conrad had more supports. He definitely could've had a support with Boey considering that Celica tells Boey in the beginning of Act 2 that he reminds her of Conrad, so I can imagine Boey bringing that up to Conrad and then the two could talk about themselves from there. It also would've been nice to have a Memory Prism between Conrad and Halcyon to give us more insight into their characters and how Conrad's life was like when growing up in the Sage's Hamlet.

Conrad proved to be one of the best units in my army. After grinding him up and promoting him in the Treescape Dungeon, Conrad was basically the Mathilda to Celica's Army. He could tank very well against mages, take physical attacks quite well, deal some pretty heavy (thanks to a heavily forged Silver Lance), and he had enough Speed to double most enemies. He was the MVP in the Duma Tower dungeon, one of most reliable units during the Endgame map, and he was one of my units in my Thabes Labyrinth team.

I don't have much to say about his voice-acting. He hits the right notes with his sweet and badass personalities. As for his design, I definitely like it. I'm a sucker for caped-characters, and Conrad is no exception with his nice cape. I like how the cape also acts like a scarf, evident when looking at his neck. His hairstyle looks good, and his gentle facial expression looks nice on him. That mask of his also has a cool look to it.

Slayde: Yeah, Slayde just felt like a really generic bad-guy, both personality and design. Heck, his voice even sounds like a Disney villain of some sort. He also wasn't that hard of a boss in all of his battles. I remember Forsyth utterly destroyed him in that second-to-last map before the Rudolph battle.

[bethany81707]

Tobin: My personal least favourite of the Ram villagers, but I still like him- someone has to be the least favourite, and Gray's snark, Kliff's confidence and Faye's thing beats whatever it is Tobin has. I just find him a foil to his conversationalists, and his lack of interaction with Clair kind of bites the whole love triangle they supposedly added. Archer being a great class also got him third place contributor on my first playthough, over Pegasus!Faye.

Conrad: An amazing way to handle a masked character, even if I don't know how it works. His role in the story kinda sucks, though, but his Memory Prism makes up for it. Support, too.

Slayde: A nice villain- I like the evil for the sake of evil guys. But that's basically it- that, and commissioning Alessio for those Steel Lances to make That One Quest...

[Seazas]

On 8/15/2017 at 7:24 PM, Jingle Jangle said:

 

  Hide contents

There should have been an option for Alm to marry her.

 

 

Okay no.... Just.... no

Edited August 20, 2017 by Peaceful_User

[epilepsyduck]

Tobin

Well, one can never claim that Tobin isn't consistent. Unfortunately, what he's consistent in is being mediocre. I struggle to really remember anything he says or does in the plot that couldn't have easily been handled by just about anyone else, and of the Ram villagers he feels the blandest and least interesting; even Faye, as one-note as she is, feels more distinct than this kid. He's also just kind of okay as a unit, never truly becoming dead weight but also never really shining in any meaningful way either. I really wish Kliff had inherited his (admittedly minimal) story importance and screentime.

Conrad

Kind of a dick tbqh. I'm not happy about disliking Conrad, but he plays a huge part in how Echoes strips Celica of her agency and competence, and he gets to work early on that front too, long before shit like Jedah's constant pop-ins or her making the world's dumbest deal. Sure, he seems sweet enough, but the moment he slapped Celica was the moment he killed any real interest I could've held in him, and that was already waning by the third time he popped out of nowhere to help her in some bullshit way. It doesn't help that, to be perfectly honest, Celica's team doesn't need a Cavalier, and he struggles to accomplish much of anything in those swamp levels she has to deal with. Bleh.

Slayde

I'm actually kinda fond of this fucker. He's a massive prick, for sure, but still, he's a memorable one at least. He certainly made an impression in the prologue, and I at least in theory appreciate an antagonist with a prior score to settle with the hero, even if that doesn't really mean much for his minor role in the story. I'm sure some people will point out that he's fairly flat and doesn't strictly add much... but let's be real, not every character in a story can or even needs to be dynamic or rounded, especially not minor antagonists. Certainly, he's more fun to have around that Berkdouche.

[Fire Emblem Fan]

Tobin: One of my favorite characters in the game! I found Tobin to be the most everyman character in the game, the most relatable. Yeah he has a special and strong friendship with Alm and the other playable villagers, but his main reason for joining the army was to provide money for his family, and even towards the end he was still hesitant because he didn't want to leave his family alone and unprovided for. I loved his banter with Gray, and I enjoyed every scene he was in despite him perhaps not being the most plot-relevant character. He also turned out to be my MVP of the game aside from Alm! I liked his design, too. It wasn't anything fancy or elaborate, it was simple. It reminded me of Brom in a way, simple yet it still seemed to work and stand out.

Conrad: When Conrad first came into the game, I kinda rolled my eyes. I was fully prepared for just another generic masked knight story, and I IMMEDIATELY predicted his relationship to Celica, and his design didn't help hide that "mystery" either (I mean, I guess maybe you were actually supposed to figure it out immediately?). But, the more he was shown as the game went on, the more he grew on me, and by the time the game ended I found that I liked him a lot! I didn't use him all that much on the field, but he was good for support when I needed him, and he snagged the final spot on my team for the Endgame.

Slayde: He was a bit generic, but I enjoyed him as a villain, despite him not being all that difficult.

[Armagon]

Tobin: One of my favorite characters in this game. In fact, he's my second favorite Ram Villager. He's personality is really relatable and and i loved how he and Gray appeared in the main plot, something i'm hoping carries over in the next game. He had amazing chemistry with Gray and you could really tell the two were the best of friends. Overall, a great character. As a unit, he did well as an Archer, but did even better as a Mage. That early game Excalibur is too good.

Spoiler

A fun bit of trivia, Tobin's English VA, Robbie Daymond, voiced Smokey Brown in the English dub of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. I usually watch anime subbed but the JoJo dub is legitimately great, plus it fits better with Parts 1 and 2, as Part 1 takes place in late 19th century England while Part 2 takes place in early 20th century Europe, and hearing non-Japanese characters speak Japanese during that time period would've broken my immersion. That being said, i watched Parts 3 and 4 of JoJo subbed, Part 3 because the main JoJo of that Part, Jotaro Kujo, is Japanese and Part 4 because it takes place exclusively in Japan. So the fact that Tobin shares his voice actor with a character from JoJo gives him some extra points.

This was in a spoiler tag because i went on a bit of a JoJo ramble. Sorry about that. I just really love JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.

Conrad: I knew this guy was Celica's brother before the game was even leaked (yeah, remember when the Japanese version was leaked two weeks in advances?). However, i was genuinely surprised to find out that beneath his mask, he's actually a lovable dork. I liked his one Support convo with Celica and i wish he had more Supports. It's rather strange that a brand new character only has one Support. Even Faye got more than one. But anyway, Conrad's one and only Support is good and i like it. I also like his design too, and i have this headcanon that he gave Zeke Camus a mask so that he could disguise himself as Sirius during the events of FE3/12.

As a unit, Conrad was pretty decent in combat. The terrain didn't help him that much. Celica's route just isn't friendly to Cavaliers (probably why she had none in the original Gaiden, unless you made Atlas one).

Slayde: Generic villain but the good kind of generic. The kind where you just wanna punch them in the face (which is exactly what Alm did in the prolouge. The punching anyway. Don't know if Alm punched him in the face. I just know he punched him).

 

 

Edited August 20, 2017 by Armagon

[property of nuvelle]

Tobin:

Spoiler

But we never get to meet Gray's son?

Jk, Tobin is my favorite along with Kliff in Ram. He and Gray are great at humoring the story. I find the

Spoiler

Endings between him and Gray changing depending on whether they live or not pretty nice. They have a hard time coping with each others deaths. I want to one off for how much I like it but I can't ever bring myself to do it.

Conrad: An alright guy. Didn't use him much but I think he could've been good. I wish they had some way of making it less obvious but I don't think there was anyways.

Slayde: OMG he said piss.

[HylianBelmont]

Tobin - He and Kliff are my favourite villagers honestly. Mainly because he has my favourite development of the Ram characters and has some pretty great voice acting to boot! Especially the critical line "This is the part that HURTS!" and he has a nice design IMO. 

Conrad - Admittedly his reveal was even more obvious than "Marth's" but regardless. I love his relationship with Celica because of how cute they are together, and it's great hearing Marc Diraison again as well.

Slayde - Not the deepest villain of all time but I enjoy him for what he is. His VA is definitely entertaining and I like how they expanded his role from the original Gaiden (where he either got taken out like a chump at Zofia Castle or just ran away, never to be seen again)

Edited August 20, 2017 by HylianBelmont