Alastor plays and ranks the whole series! Mission Complete! ...For now.

[Alastor15243]

1 hour ago, Axie said:

i love this new ranking system enough to overlook that +6 to BlaBla's writing that single-handedly put it above my sun and stars BinBla. no, i will literally never stop being annoying about it lol. concise yet thorough, and you shouldn't feel bad that most games are in the games. four of them are the first games anyway, massively bogged down by hardware and writing categories. the others are near 0, except T776. it's fine and what i would personally expect from such a format.

Sorry that story thing is rubbing you the wrong way. I genuinely feel that its narrative strengths compensate for its sloppy worldbuilding. I was fully aware of all the nonsense in that game because that's just the mode I go into when I playlog a game, and yet the story was consistently gripping and entertaining thanks to how it was told. It really just does more than most of the other games on this list, and I can't help but praise it for that.

I'm sad about Binding Blade's 0 ranking too, honestly. Thankfully the ranking system isn't final and I might go back to it and tweak point awards some. My feelings about Binding Blade's gameplay are definitely too positive for me to feel happy with it having a dead 0 score.

  

On 1/7/2021 at 7:14 PM, Shadow Mir said:

What about difficulty?

Just saw this when re-reading back pages and realized I missed it. Lunatic. Lunatic for all three games is the goal.

Edited January 9, 2021 by Alastor15243

[Shadow Mir]

25 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Just saw this when re-reading back pages and realized I missed it. Lunatic. Lunatic for all three games is the goal.

Okay. Have you thought about who you're gonna use?

[Axie]

34 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Sorry that story thing is rubbing you the wrong way. I genuinely feel that its narrative strengths compensate for its sloppy worldbuilding. I was fully aware of all the nonsense in that game because that's just the mode I go into when I playlog a game, and yet the story was consistently gripping and entertaining thanks to how it was told. It really just does more than most of the other games on this list, and I can't help but praise it for that.

oh i understand this entirely! i know i am being annoying about it lol. blazing blade's story has its charm and i don't deny it (it is my first fire emblem too, i wouldn't be here if i didn't love it too, at least at first). also, the way you treat blazing blade is how i treat sacred stones (a willingness to forgive flaws because it was told in a way i enjoy), so i am no stranger to loving a holed story.

though, to keep it on brand... BlaBla does have the biggest holes imo. like, it's up there with awakening sometimes for me. i don't think i'd like sacred stones as much if i thought it was that holey lol.

34 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

I'm sad about Binding Blade's 0 ranking too, honestly. Thankfully the ranking system isn't final and I might go back to it and tweak point awards some. My feelings about Binding Blade's gameplay are definitely too positive for me to feel happy with it having a dead 0 score.

ooh, glad to hear this! binding blade is my everything (and that's probably why i grew to be frustrated with BlaBla's writing lol). i like the characters a lot, the gameplay can be either mindful fun (normal) or a big challenge (hard), and the story keeps it simple but it's more than the archanea copy people give it credit for. elibe is a setting with so much untapped potential. i really hope it's the next remake, genealogy be damned.

Edited January 9, 2021 by Axie

[Alastor15243]

16 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Okay. Have you thought about who you're gonna use?

It's Revelation. The obvious answer is to use the royal family and little else, but if anyone has any requests for units they want me to try to use, either because you like them or you hate me, go nuts.

 

22 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Were you euphoric when you finished SD the first time? Your entries here certainly read like that.

I had my own euphoric moment right after I finished a game not that long ago, part of it stemmed from not being the atrocity I feared it would be. But then, in the days after I finished it, I realized that, while I had already noticed some cracks and issues in it, that things were actually a good deal sloppier than I had initially conceded.😐

What game was that? Now I'm curious. But to answer your question... yeah, kinda. And my immediate exuberant retries of the game on higher difficulties made me more aware of its problems.

15 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Wow, that is just plain obnoxious. I guess marking the game's ironmanability ranking for the DLC cheating you would be petty, but if anything even close to that happened in the actual game...

Yeah, if a mainline chapter did that, I would definitely be pissed. But what with it being DLC, while it's still extremely annoying that they don't tell me, in fairness when it comes to the late-game DLC I'm definitely "playing the game wrong".

15 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Yikes...I think the worst thing about this is that even if you add the balance section back in, if you give it the bottom slot, Awakening would get 3rd at absolute worst, and I don't think the other games would get a balance level high enough to drop it out of first... (Genealogy needs at least 5+ on balance to beat Awakening, and Shadow Dragon or Path of Radiance would need the top slot to do so...)

Yeah, the sheer degree to which it had a point lead on the competitors just horrified me. Hopefully this new system works better.

22 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

If you're doing ironman, is that Lck bane really gonna fly? Why not Res or Skl? Those are the two stats that I'd probably pick for a bane not Lck. Although I confess I too do Lck banes almost always.

Goddess icons are really good in Fates, so I find it's easy to get the avatar up to acceptable luck thresholds. Plus, res or skill would also slightly nerf speed or defense, stats I'm not big on seeing nerfed. Plus, res is important.

8 minutes ago, Axie said:

ooh, glad to hear this! binding blade is my everything (and that's probably why i grew to be frustrated with BlaBla's writing lol). i like the characters a lot, the gameplay can be either mindful fun (normal) or a big challenge (hard), and the story keeps it simple but it's more than the archanea copy people give it credit for. elibe is a setting with so much untapped potential. i really hope it's the next remake, genealogy be damned.

Yeah, I may not have always shown it at the time, but in hindsight Binding Blade has a lot going for it gameplaywise that I really like. You'll notice it's the only game on the list I gave a positive score on balance, for one thing. Also, it's got some miscellaneous stuff I like, specifically the fact that you can buy almost any weapon in the game at at least one shop, which appeals to me because it lets you make regular use of things you're usually too scared to ever use until it's too late.

...Honestly, I've got some miscellaneous points of praise for a couple of games that don't really neatly fit into any category, and maybe this new system would allow me to add in some sort of "Bonus points" thing. For instance, I really wanna add points to Thracia for how damned fun its high level staves are to use, especially rewarp. All that time staff-grinding asbel to A staves on a poisoned ally? I regret literally nothing.

Edited January 9, 2021 by Alastor15243

[Jotari]

9 minutes ago, Axie said:

oh i understand this entirely! i know i am being annoying about it lol. blazing blade's story has its charm and i don't deny it (it is my first fire emblem too, i wouldn't be here if i didn't love it too, at least at first). also, the way you treat blazing blade is how i treat sacred stones (a willingness to forgive flaws because it was told in a way i enjoy), so i am no stranger to loving a holed story.

though, to keep it on brand... BlaBla does have the biggest holes imo. like, it's up there with awakening sometimes for me. i don't think i'd like sacred stones as much if i thought it was that holey lol.

ooh, glad to hear this! binding blade is my everything (and that's probably why i grew to be frustrated with BlaBla's writing lol). i like the characters a lot, the gameplay can be either mindful fun (normal) or a big challenge (hard), and the story keeps it simple but it's more than the archanea copy people give it credit for. elibe is a setting with so much untapped potential. i really hope it's the next remake, genealogy be damned.

Go back and check his Blazing Blade playlogs if you haven't seen them already. It's a beautiful battle between nostalgia and common sense.

2 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

It's Revelation. The obvious answer is to use the royal family and little else, but if anyone has any requests for units they want me to try to use, either because you like them or you hate me, go nuts.

Fuuga. Because he's exclusive to Rev.

Edited January 9, 2021 by Jotari

[Shadow Mir]

4 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

It's Revelation. The obvious answer is to use the royal family and little else, but if anyone has any requests for units they want me to try to use, either because you like them or you hate me, go nuts.

I also had Birthright and Conquest in mind when I asked that. But I guess you have time to think on those.

[Alastor15243]

4 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Go back and check his Blazing Blade playlogs if you haven't seen them already. It's a beautiful battle between nostalgia and common sense.

Hahaha, there's just something about knowing my readers have favorite playlogs that gets to me somehow. I can't describe it, but I love it.

5 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Fuuga. Because he's exclusive to Rev.

And that is an excellent point!

[Shadow Mir]

6 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Plus, res is important.

Por que? Because "resistance" and "important" are generally two words I don't see in the same sentence.

[Alastor15243]

Just now, Shadow Mir said:

Por que? Because "resistance" and "important" are generally two words I don't see in the same sentence.

HP is low in this game. If you want to survive magic attacks, something you're gonna need to do as an enemy-phase unit, you need good resistance. Or at least not "15% growth rate" bad, which is what I'd get if I took that as a bane.

[Benice]

Re: Unit requests for Rev, I'm evil so Imma request Master Ninja Orochi!

Of course, if that is TOO terrible, I'm okay with picking something else.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Fuuga. Because he's exclusive to Rev.

Seconding this. Also, Hayato. While not Rev-exclusive, he's pretty good, and has supports with Mr. Fuga. Reina is a very solid early-joining pre-promote, as well. And Shura is absurdly overleveled for his join time (but in a good way).

[Interdimensional Observer]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

What game was that? Now I'm curious.

Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 2, the 3DS updated Record Breaker edition. An SMT spinoff arguably closer to what people would've expected an FE x SMT crossover would play like (the little known Majin Tensei and its sequel are also an SMT spinoff thats FE-esque, one that released seven days after Old Mystery).

I bought the DS version of the game, so I already knew the main Septentrione arc which I lovingly replayed and still love. Record Breaker added a sequel story called Triangulum, and this is where my euphoria followed by a downturn days later came from. Atlus has done additional story content/scenarios in their second releases before, but outside of Nocturne Maniax, the quality has been... mixed. Gameplay-wise, Triangulum was fine, none of the new battles and bosses seemed unfair, though perhaps difficult, and the final boss had a cool narrative-gameplay-boost idea, by which I mean something like Yune's blessing of the weapons.

But narratively? From the start, I didn't like how repetitive some of the dialogue felt. Not to go into too much detail, but pretend, instead of Valm, the midgame of Awakening was helping Lucina find her missing comrades, b/c necessary to stop Grima's return or something. Now, imagine if CRL + FlaBas had difficulties finding everyone, and every fourth line was "We gotta find X! We still don't know what happened to Y! Did you share my vision of that thing probably important to stopping the Fell Dragon's return, what does it mean?". Would that get bothersome to you? That was like, about the first third to half of the story.

In addition, I tried to keep track of new bit of lore Triangulum introduced, and attempted to compare it all to what Septentrione established. At first, I didn't notice that many serious contradictions, some stuff seemed totally valid as expansions on the old, others were fairly benign, a few things were problematic, but I accepted there likely wouldn't be 100% consistency, thats unrealistic. And because overall the experience wasn't bad as I feared it could be, and all the characters were when I finished the balance sheet (there were some ups, down, clear signs of favoritism) as likable as they were before for me, I had my euphoric moment upon completing Triangulum. 

It wasn't until later in the week that I realized how the fairly simple, clear lore built in Septentrione, had gotten gunky. It is not Awakening Retcon The Universe Bad, that'd be unfair to refer to it as. It is more that the writers were expanding on what was already a completed story, for the sake of having new story content to go with the old characters the fans love in this enhanced port of a game already playable on 3DS, and they didn't realize their complicating of lore demanded a degree of precision and consistency they weren't providing. The writers wanted to add a new character too, one who they had written for the original game, but couldn't find a way to fit into it and so they were left unused. The result being said character takes center stage in Triangulum, and their execution was so-so.

Initially, I was willing to say the Triangulum story was only a little inferior to the Septentrione one. Now, I have to say that if I find Septentrione an A-, Triangulum is a B, or maybe B-, depending on how tough I want to be on it. Not bad, but it's certainly not contestable that Sept in incontestably better, even setting aside the basic fact that Sept creates the world and story which Tri is a Season 2 to.

 

...I know you didn't ask for all this, and you don't have to read one bit of it. The bolded is all you wanted to know.🙂

Edited January 9, 2021 by Interdimensional Observer

[Alastor15243]

9 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

...I know you didn't ask for all this, and you don't have to read one bit of it. The bolded is all you wanted to know.🙂

Haha, unfortunately I don't think I can read most of this. A friend wants me to try it someday and I probably will... eventually.

[Eltosian Kadath]

18 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

...Better! I'm thinking there are probably some tweaks to the formula I'll have to work out, and I'm more than a little alarmed that under this system, of the 14/19 games ranked so far, only five of them got a positive score. But I am far more happy with the order now than I ever was under the “slap it all together and score it like it's golf” system of yore. This will definitely see some changes by the time you next see it used. Maybe a modification to how many tiers give negative points, since I kinda stuck pretty hard to making it 3 above and 3 below, and honestly, especially with presentation, that doesn't feel right.

It isn't that surprising that most are scoring negative; summing all possible score categories nets -7, and the highest positive scores aren't awarded, while most of the lowest possible scores are...

That being said this new scoring system works a lot better, and has cleared up most of the issues with the older system.

[Alastor15243]

30 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

It isn't that surprising that most are scoring negative; summing all possible score categories nets -7, and the highest positive scores aren't awarded, while most of the lowest possible scores are...

That being said this new scoring system works a lot better, and has cleared up most of the issues with the older system.

Yeah, another thing I noticed since writing that is that 0 isn't bad, it's "average". It's the baseline score. So once you take out the NES games and Mystery... that looks about right and less cynical.

[Alastor15243]

Revelation Day 1: Prologue to Chapter 2

Hooooooooo boy.

Here we are, boys and girls.

Fire. Emblem. Fates.

The game that, so to speak, “woke me up” as a Fire Emblem player and got me to seriously pay attention to things like strategy.

The only “modern” game that I get genuine, profound nostalgia for.

Granted, a big part of that has to be the experience I made out of it. I decided to do a screenshot let's play of the game on these very forums, called Dakota's War Journal. It started out as a sort of “Abridged Series” where I played the games while writing the let's play in the form of the titular “war journal” of a deranged, eccentric, psychopathic, narcissistic pervert named Dakota Waterstone Vendelgate of Nohr. It started as that, but it wound up getting a lot more serious (while still having comedic moments) as the game went on, and by the time of Conquest, it actively became my effort to make the story interesting again after Chapter 15 made me realize the game had no intention of being anything above idiotic. It basically became me improvisationally rewriting the game as I went, all while doing a blind ironman of all three games on hard.

...Unfortunately, I never managed to finish the story. I ultimately wound up giving up a third of the way through Revelation due to a combination of my seat-of-my-pants worldbuilding catching up with me and making it impossible to tie up all the loose ends... and Revelation's absurdly mindless difficulty making any attempt at making this a dramatic climax nigh-impossible because the sense of danger I had cultivated by that point just couldn't carry over to the actual gameplay portions of Dakota's commentary. I managed to complete the run, and I still have all the necessary gameplay screenshots saved to my computer (I pushed myself to finish the game when I heard that Miiverse was shutting down)... but I have serious doubts that I'll ever actually finish. I don't think I could ever come up with a satisfying way to tie up all the loose ends I thoughtlessly scattered around assuming I'd be able to resolve them while obeying the story beats of a game I hadn't even played yet. Shame too, because I had some really fun ideas.

Honestly, looking back, a lot of it is melodramatic and cringey, but words simply cannot describe how much fun I had making it. It was a really, really fun project, and the memories I have of making it and all of my adventures, especially on the Conquest playthrough, are a huge part of my time with this game.

...So a big concern I've secretly had as we've been getting closer to this game is that maybe the fun I had making that LP/RP has colored my impression of the game so much that I'm remembering it as being far better than it actually is.

Thankfully, however, I'm not going to have to find out today.

Because this is Revelation. And Revelation is not one of the Fates games I have fond memories of.

In fact, my disappointment and anger at this game is... kind of intense. Which is why I wanted to do it first. To see how I feel about it when my impression of it doesn't immediately have to follow up the most fun I've ever had with a Fire Emblem game in my entire life and the dramatic stakes I built up for it thinking it'd be “like Conquest except you're allowed to grind”.

I'm gonna be ironmanning all three Fates game on Lunatic. My understanding is they all have vastly different design philosophies on how to up the difficulty on Lunatic, so I'll be very interested in noticing the differences. From what I understand though, Birthright increases numbers, Conquest adds skills, and Revelation... buffs stats.

Oh goodie.

Personally, in a game like Fire Emblem, I think adjusting stats is basically the worst way to change difficulty. It almost inevitably fucks with class and unit balance. Especially speed. Oftentimes it becomes borderline impossible to double unless you're really, really fast, which makes speed almost pointless if you're below that benchmark. With the exception of maybe making stats lower for the easiest mode, I really think that almost anything else is better to change than stats.

...Speaking of ironmanning... quick refresher on the rules. I will continue to ironman until and unless one of the following things happens:

1: I get a game over for any reason.

2: The overall body count ever exceeds the current main-story chapter number divided by 2.

...I have never, ever lost a playlog ironman due to the second rule. It's always been the first. The second one is just there to make sure that I have to end the ironman while the game is still beatable, just in case things go really badly. I used to have other rules, but the introduction of reclassing has kind of made them irrelevant.

Anyway, I'm actually weirdly looking forward to this. Despite me remembering Revelation being a terrible game... I mean, now I have the perspective of having played the whole series before it within a little over a year. So now I get to find out just how bad it is in the grand scheme of things. It's got a lot of problems I complained about, but I've noticed that several early games had those problems too, namely the terribly lame enemy AI and ridiculously tedious maps.

But fuck it, enough with the introduction. Let's get going. Today I'm going to try to get through as much of the prologue as possible.

...Ah yes, the intro.

That intro I first glimpsed in that trailer the better part of a decade ago, which had me so convinced that Fates was gonna make Fire Emblem have good stories again.

Ohhh poor naive me.

Poor naive all of us.

But anyway, time to make my avatar. If you wanna check out what he looks like, go read the very beginning of the first entry of Dakota's War Journal, linked in my signature. That's the original Dakota. I'm going with all the same features I picked in that image. Same birthday, talent, boon and bane as well.

...As for my plans for who to marry... uh... I honestly haven't given that much thought. Not for Revelation at least. The number of good units outside of the royal families is kinda... sparse, shall we say.

Because the unit balance of this game is like... I mean it's bad in ways that are just idiotic to behold.

...Speaking of idiotic to behold...

...Say hello to my “old friend” that is Fire Emblem Localizers' efforts to write poetry and song lyrics.

“Lost in Thoughts All Alone”. Good god does this song piss me off. It's a nice song, but the English lyrics are absolutely terrible. For those of you just joining us, I absolutely cannot stand it when lyric writers are so lazy that they deliberately mis-emphasize and even mispronounce words just to make them fit into rhythmic meters they don't belong in.

Every single song or bit of verse from Fire Emblem that has ever been translated to English has this problem. Sometimes it's just one instance, like Heritors of Arcadia inexplicably changing the “The seasons, they turn” that they already used mere seconds before into “The seasons turn”. And in Edge of Dawn they have “No wing. Time bee trays.”

Lost in Thoughts All Alone does this in almost every line.

“Waters.”

“The path is.”

“Double.”

“In the white light, a hand reaches through.”

“A legacy... of lies.”

“The light scatters.”

“The black pillar.”

It's fucking everywhere. Whoever localized it is a hack.

...But moving on... we get to the big battle sequence between Xander and Ryoma, and here's one thing I really, really, really appreciate about this game, something this game has been more successful at than any other game in the entire series: giving different countries' armies visibly different aesthetics.

They accomplish this by splitting the entire class list of the franchise in two (and adding new original ones) and making half of them from one of the two big countries and half of them from the other. That means that the two armies have visibly distinct visual styles that you can clearly tell apart. Sure, other games have at least individualized each nation's army by mixing up what units each one specializes in, but there's always a bunch of classes used by multiple different nations, and the cavalry of one nation still looks identical to the cavalry of the next. Here though... every class is culturally unique to one of the two nations of...

...Ah yes. Ah yes, but the continent doesn't have a name, does it?

People tend to mockingly call it Fateslandia. In Dakota's War Journal, I called it Xelbus. But there is no canon name, because, as we are going to learn rather swiftly... the writing in this game is absolutely terrible.

...But enough of that for now. Time for “gameplay”. Basically a playable dream that serves as a tutorial as we take part in this... thing that doesn't actually ever happen, but which precedes events that do, so it's a weird combination of normal dream weirdness and prophecy I guess?

Ah yes, and we're introduced to some of the highly-boasted graphical improvements this game has over Awakening. Namely the fact that when you get into a battle, it actually transitions into a larger model of the map you're fighting on, and you actually fight on that part of the map. It still doesn't know how to handle fliers attacking from over water and ranged combat over obstacles, but overall it is a very welcome improvement!

Ah yes, and Camilla introduces the new dragon vein system, where royal characters, who have dragon blood running through their veins, can access these nexuses of draconic power scattered throughout the land to mess with the battlefield, opening pathways, debuffing enemies, and all other manner of gimmicks.

I fucking love this mechanic. At least how Conquest used it. Birthright had some nice ideas too, though it was a little more mixed, and Revelation, well...

...Oh holy shit are you not going to believe how terrible Revelation's map design is.

And now we get this really corny scene of Dakota's Nohrian and Hoshidan families fighting over him, and... yeah, weirdly, I was somehow still emotionally invested in Fates at this point, if my posts on Dakota's War Journal are any indication, and me saying that I had “almost forgotten what a gripping Fire Emblem story felt like”.

Yeah, and as the argument between the two families reaches fever pitch, I hear an echoing voice telling me to wake up.

...And then comes next chapter, where I'm greeted by my two maids bending over me in bed.

...A really huge bed, that I'm just laying on top of, in full armor, not even under a bedsheet.

Ah yes. “Slugabeds”. A word I have heard in this game and literally nowhere else. It's weird how some words are like that, like how apparently vulneraries were a real thing, but you never hear the word outside of Fire Emblem.

Anyway... Christ, I feel like I should be saying more about these scenes, but... there's really not much to say at the moment beyond the fact that they're aggressively mediocre. The writing just doesn't have that quality to it that Path of Radiance, Blazing Blade, and even Radiant Dawn had.

But one thing I notice is that they've actually decided to have Xander stand on his horse in cutscenes, as opposed to how it worked in Awakening. That's nice.

...If this weren't an ironman I'd almost be tempted to find out what the fuck Xander says if you ignore him giving you a heal tile and just suicide onto him while wounded. If anyone knows what the line is, by all means, tell me!

My first level up is just skill, luck and res. Disappointing, but even if I weren't ironmanning, there'd be nothing I can do. Lunatic has this cool system where it rigs all of the 0-99 RNG rolls you get for each stat every level in advance when you get the character. No matter how many times you reset after having saved after getting them, their level ups will always be the same unless you change your growth rates via class change, which may cause some of those rigged random numbers to suddenly be good enough to increase something.

Anyway, I beat Xander, as should be expected, and...

Ugh, and now there's this really awkward bit of “as-you-know”-ing that I didn't notice before that exposits Leo as a powerful mage, and we're also reintroduced to Dakota's Nohrian sisters.

...While Leo's inside-out collar is kind of dumb, I do like that this game actually went to the trouble to give Leo an inside-out collar texture for this scene.

Yep, and now we get a very slow rising panning shot of Elise and Camilla, which is almost certainly intended to give us a good look at Camilla, who...

...Look.

I am a red-blooded man. I will be, pardon the pun, “straight” with you.

Camilla is goddamned gorgeous. The world of, ahem, “art” would be a poorer place if she and her outfit had never been invented.

But she does not suit the tone. Absolutely nothing about this character suits the tone that the writers were presumably going for, given that this is presumably a story of war and death that's supposed to make me cry. She's an incestuous, obsessive yandere psychopath wearing an assless and crotchless bodystocking, a black bikini bottom, an armored corset with a strap right between her tits, armored opera gloves, and armored thigh-high boots with 6-inch heels. Her every voiced line sounds like she's trying to get someone hard, even the ones she uses while talking to her blood relatives. This game already has serious issues mixing seriousness with wacky anime hijinks, but hooooooly shit is Camilla a microcosm of everything wrong with the tone of this game.

And the hilarious thing is that basically nobody reacts to her outrageously flirtatious “ara ara” behavior.

Camilla: Are you all right, Dakota? Did you get hurt at all during training practice? If you did, let me know right away so I can take extra-special care of you...

Dakota: (Casually smiling) I'm perfectly, fine Camilla. As always, thanks for your concern.

And then we get Elise, who is absolutely adorable. She's one of my favorite characters in the game in terms of gameplay and story, and she's probably my favorite staff user in Fire Emblem history in terms of gameplay. She's outrageously fragile, but this is actually a game where that doesn't matter! You don't need to live in perpetual fear of her being killed by ambush spawns because there are no ambush spawns!

Oh yes. Whatever complaints I may have about Revelation, for the most part ironmannability isn't going to be one of them.

Anyway, this whole scene is a pretty transparent attempt to introduce us to the cast and get us emotionally attached to them, because this is really the only big moment they're all going to have together just hanging out and chatting before the big route split.

...Yeah, uh... that's one of my thousands of complaints about this story. We really needed more time to get to know the royal families before being forced to choose between them. If they had just increased the prologue from 6 to 10 chapters, that would've made a huge difference. Maybe having a chapter showing the trip from the Northern Fortress to Castle Krakenburg, having all the Nohrian siblings team up with Corrin to fight off bandits or something.

Ah yes, and now we get to Elise doing the big spinning hug on Dakota, and...

Leo: Elise, when do you intend to behave like the adult that you technically are?

Yes, the line that's been memed into oblivion: this game attempting to pass off Elise as legal when she blatantly is not in order to make it less creepy that you can marry her.

I'll be honest: I've never had it in me to ship her with anyone, though technically that's also a bit hard to do when she's a non-combatant. I have plans to change that in Conquest though.

...So apparently Garon wants Dakota to leave the fortress, and sent the orders however long ago it takes for news to get around in this world, even though Xander said Garon told him that Dakota would never get to leave the fortress if he failed his training today.

...Ah yes.

Lilith.

...For absolutely no reason whatsoever, this character's appearance has prompted me to give this reminder in case any new readers are listening in: if you haven't played this game before and are just reading this for the sake of my commentary, well first, I'm... well I'm less flattered than I usually am that people are choosing this to be their first experience of any individual Fire Emblem game, but I'm still flattered. Nevertheless... beware rampant spoilers. I am going to be talking about shit before it happens whenever it becomes relevant to the discussion of shit currently happening. You have been warned.

Yeah, and now there's some cheesy exposition about how good Dakota is with animals, and talking about the “bird” that Dakota rescued a while back (which was actually Lilith, who is really an astral dragon who looks nothing like a fucking bird).

Lilith blushes when Elise insinuates she's got a crush on Dakota, which is weird because as the DLC reveals... Lilith is Dakota's literal blood sister.

Ah yes, and then we arrive at Castle Krakenburg in Windmire, and as ridiculously over-dramatically evil as this place is... I unironically love it. It looks like somebody tried to build Castle Mordor inside of the Death Star. I wish we got more than one chapter with which to explore the outer buildings of it, because it's a crazy fucking place.

...Ah yes.

Here goes.

Moment of truth for this whole ironman:

Will I be able to tackle the hardest pre-route chapter in the entire game?

Yeah, for those of you who have never played Fates Lunatic...

...while this chapter isn't nearly as bad as anything in Awakening, in fact it's pretty great...

...it does not fuck around.

...Right, so we see Garon, and the game could not possibly make it more obvious that this guy is a bad guy.

...So apparently everyone expects Dakota to believe that he's been raised in the Northern Fortress for his own protection, despite the fact that his noncombatant little sister Elise has been allowed to go with everyone else at her leisure.

...I can't get over how ridiculous Ganglari is. It's like pure crystalized malice that's been barely shaped into something kinda resembling a sword if you squint at it. Xander makes a comment like he's suspicious of Garon for giving it to Dakota, but nothing comes of this given his absolute blind refusal to believe anything's wrong with Garon throughout the game.

But yeah, now we have to fight six prisoners in a big arena.

...Rinkah's “I am Rinkah.” line is awkward, considering that it's said with an exclamation mark in text but flatly in the voice line.

Oh yeah. Here it comes.

Here it comes.

One of my favorite songs in Fire Emblem history.

Dusk Falls.

Oh man I love this song. It's just so badass and adventurous, and that little strumming intro riff in the calm version is just divine. Really, this game's soundtrack is beyond top notch, and the different instruments used for the nations of Nohr and Hoshido really adds flavor to everything.

But yeah, this is gonna be tricky. Usually I have Jakob, and Felicia is significantly weaker as a combat unit and the extra magic she has isn't really all that useful here.

Also... this map has a dragon vein that opens up the central area and reveals a healing area.

If you are playing on Lunatic, DO NOT USE IT. If you do, you get rid of the only thing keeping yourself from getting swarmed by both sets of enemies at once. That big square of obstacles in the center of the battlefield is way more valuable than some heal tiles.

Alright, since two of the three enemies on Rinkah's side (which I always do first) have 1-2 range, and my only 1-2 range unit sucks at combat, I'm just waiting for them to approach so I can leap in with a player-phase assault. The myrmidon goes down in a single hit thanks to Gunter, and so begins the first real chance the player gets to mess around with the brilliant changes that were made to the Awakening pair-up system.

Okay, I don't think I ever mentioned this in Awakening, but another thing pair-up did was give your partner a % chance to completely block an attack, a chance that scales based on the duo's support rank and combined defense stat. So, that and dual strike have been made into separate functions. From now on, you can only get dual strikes if you're adjacent to someone while unpaired. You always get exactly one, accompanying your first attack, and it does half damage. And you can see what the damage and hit and crit rate are and everything. Imagine that! And now pairing up only gives you the stat boosts and the dual guard function. Which isn't chance-based anymore. Every time you attack or get attacked, whether it hits or misses, you gain 2 shield points (3 with a certain skill). Once you hit 10, the next attack against you will be completely negated and you'll go back to 0 points.

Words cannot express how much I love this system. It somehow transforms Awakening's ridiculous pair-up system into something that actually adds strategic merit to the game. Dual strikes are the much-needed buff that player-phase units have been waiting for. Adding a significant buff to the amount of damage you can do when attacking next to an ally allows for some pretty impressive formation chains, makes player-phase combat much more interesting, makes units who can't double still capable of reliably one-rounding if they're strong enough, and, here's the huge kicker here:

The enemy can use it too.

The only way to prevent enemy dual strike attacks is to be in guard stance yourself, which limits your player-phase options, which actually matter in this game because there are numerous other buffs to player-phase combat through skills and weapons that make enemy-phase-tanking everything a ludicrous proposition. Not to mention the global HP nerfs making enemy-phasing more dangerous without a pair-up partner, making player-phase positioning vitally important.

Oh, and did I mention that Fates further buffs player-phase units by radically altering the exp curve to make it virtually impossible for a unit in active use to get more than a couple of levels ahead of or behind the current enemy level? Meaning that only getting one attack per turn only leaves you a few levels behind, whereas in other games it would leave you in the dust?

Yeah, in case you couldn't tell, I am in love with the mechanics of Fates. I could rant about how much I love the mechanics of this trinity of games for hours. And I will. And you will endure every single fanboyish moment of it.

But let's actually get this chapter done so we can wrap up for today. I'm nearly at 10 pages. Let's see... where was I...?

...Ah yeah. So I kill everyone on the west side but Rinkah because the nameless oni savage was the only one who didn't have a 1-2 range weapon, allowing me to do chip damage with Felicia while still ending the player-phase unscathed. Corrin gets a second level up, and it's HPsauce. Shit. But there's nothing I can do about that, even if I weren't ironmanning, as I already said. I've just gotta hope for better level ups later.

...And basically the best possible outcome happens. Rinkah attacks Felicia, the only one who can counter-attack her, because she has the lowest defense and can't do any damage back even though she can counter.

But she can debuff, because that's a thing that the new knife weapons can do in this game. I don't really find this remotely useful for the player, but it's an amazing way to make player-phase combat important when the enemy has them, because it takes careful dual strike planning to take out ninjas without getting debuffed by them.

And finally Dakota gets an at least halfway-decent level up after beating Kaze, with strength, speed and luck. And with that, the battle is over.

...Man, whenever it comes time to talk about Fates' plot... it's weird, I get this strange sense of exhaustion. Like I've already gone over everything about why this story is fucked up so much that I almost have no energy left to do it in here. Weird. I thought shitting on this story would be fun, but now that it's time to I don't have much energy to do it. Like, I was just having fun with that crazy gameplay, and then suddenly I had an emotion come over me when the cutscene happened that can best be summarized as “Oh. Right. The plot. Yaaaaaaaay.”

...Yeah, so, weirdly, I almost just naturally assumed that Garon would be a malig knight when I first heard about him and the class, and the fact that he just randomly uses fire magic in this scene only further reinforced that feeling.

Actually, fun fact, back when I was all naive and full of wonder about what this game would be like, when I just knew scraps from what I randomly saw on the wiki while the game was still only out in Japan... I had this thing where I fantasized about the final battle being fighting Garon on this network of castle rooftops not unlike Fuga's Wild Ride while his massive army of wyverns rushed my army. And I also for some reason imagined Azura being held captive in a giant birdcage suspended over the side of a tower while she sang her song to empower us.

...And I was imagining all of this while listening to Song of Myself by Nightwish.

...Well, the first 3 and a half minutes on repeat. After that the song goes from titanically awesome to... really lame.

...Yeah, honestly... I feel like something changed between Awakening and Fates. More action is happening in scenes using the battle models. Or rather, just more action in general that they used those models for. And... when you're not in the heat of combat with intense music playing, and when you can actually see their faces up close... those models can look really dumb, floaty and goofy.

...Actually, come to think of it, did any actual fights ever happen in story scenes in Awakening? I only remember that battle with the Khans and Walhart, which played like an actual fight using the stat overlay and everything. I can't remember any scenes like this where people blow people up with fire magic or swing swords at each other.

...Yeah, I kinda get the feeling it was a good thing they didn't do that in Awakening.

...Yeah, I just... this just kinda overloads my brain and I can't think of anything to say. This entire game... like... it goes way beyond any complaints I had with previous games, and yet at the same time is also just... way more enjoyable. Like... this game is just almost perpetual nonstop bathos. Almost everything about how the story of Fates is told is absolutely terrible... in a way that's absolutely hilarious.

Experiencing this game's story is like experiencing anime “The Room”. Everything is just... wrong, and it's wrong in just the perfect way to be hysterical. It is absolutely exhausting to attempt to comment on or describe the problems with this story, because they are manifold and omnipresent. ...And yet the more I play this, the more I remember the genuine, heartfelt joy that this terrible, terrible story brought me, for nearly every moment I played it. Other bad stories in the series just annoy me. With the possible exception of the ridiculous minimalism of the first three games, this is the only game in the entire series that is bad in a way that makes me laugh. And it makes me laugh a lot.

How the hell can I grade that? How can I justify giving games like Awakening and Sacred Stones a better score in writing than this when I would much rather experience the story of Fates than either of those games? ...Hell, I enjoy watching this story more than the story of the games I gave a neutral score.

...Can I justify giving this game a positive score in writing because it's so bad that it's good? That sounds horrible... and yet I kind of want to.

But yeah, we see our first example of Leo and Xander covertly working to minimize the cruelty of Garon's regime behind his back, and... yeah, I think that's a good place to leave off for today. We'll tackle more of this game tomorrow, hopefully finishing up the pre-route-split part.

...I'll be skipping this part for Birthright and Conquest, but not through Branch of Fate. Apparently if you change gender the experience of your old starting servant doesn't transfer to the new starting one, so... yeah, I'll just re-do this stuff offscreen.

Stay safe, everyone!

[Interdimensional Observer]

On 1/9/2021 at 8:53 AM, Alastor15243 said:

Haha, unfortunately I don't think I can read most of this. A friend wants me to try it someday and I probably will... eventually.

The Devil Survivors are quite fun IMO. Not exactly FE, it's more traditional SMT combat interposed on an SRPG grid for moving and attacking. If you do eventually consider them, then hope you enjoy them.

 

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

“Lost in Thoughts All Alone”. Good god does this song piss me off. It's a nice song, but the English lyrics are absolutely terrible. For those of you just joining us, I absolutely cannot stand it when lyric writers are so lazy that they deliberately mis-emphasize and even mispronounce words just to make them fit into rhythmic meters they don't belong in.

The presence of instruments making rhythmic sounds in the background means lyrical songs are different than literature, but I'm aware of there different approaches to translation regarding poetic devices. Dante's Divine Comedy, Puskin's Eugene Onegin were both written in verse. Now, one should ideally read a good book in its native languages, but not everyone has the time or effort for that. Translators catering to that audience have to decide: 

• Strictly preserve the meter and rhyme to the absolute best that you can, though it might not naturally flow in the new language.
• Or, abandon the meter, rhyme, and what have you, to better express the literature's message, you can choose to either...
  • ...convert to prose, probably appropriately eloquent prose, but still prose.
  • ...or choose a different form of meter. Dante used terza rima, some English translators ran with iambic pentameter.

But I can tell your criticism of LiTAA assumes minimal care and no thought of the above whatsoever on the part of the English translators.😅

Personally, I'm okay with songs with lyrics in video games overall. However, if the song is in the game's world -not something only we the players are hearing- and its lyrics are supposed to have special powers or prophecy or other magical thing, then I don't like it at all (with one exception). Because that specific category of songs is inherently forced, the lyrics can't be natural. Well, maybe they could be if someone wrote the song and then the concept, world, characters, and the story of the game, but that'd have the risk of shoehorning everything into fitting the lyrics.

Therefore, I dislike LiTAA, barring the Smash instrumental version, which is actually good. Used the Silence rod on the upper left side of my 3DS as the final battles of Fates raged.

 

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

every class is culturally unique to one of the two nations of...

...Ah yes. Ah yes, but the continent doesn't have a name, does it?

People tend to mockingly call it Fateslandia. In Dakota's War Journal, I called it Xelbus. But there is no canon name, because, as we are going to learn rather swiftly... the writing in this game is absolutely terrible.

As I wish to stay out of the Fates character-narrative stuff and stay Switzerland in my opinion of it by going Sakoku, I'll be skipping past all plot commentary FYI. As I mashed Start more than there are grains of sand on all the shores of the world with this game, I never once witnessed a Fates cutscene nor support. Still gonna be here for your gameplay remarks, I will much enjoy those.

 

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

If you are playing on Lunatic, DO NOT USE IT. If you do, you get rid of the only thing keeping yourself from getting swarmed by both sets of enemies at once. That big square of obstacles in the center of the battlefield is way more valuable than some heal tiles.

Never ran into this problem, not that I remember. Not sure why. This early chapter wasn't hard with the DV used.

 

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

How the hell can I grade that? How can I justify giving games like Awakening and Sacred Stones a better score in writing than this when I would much rather experience the story of Fates than either of those games? ...Hell, I enjoy watching this story more than the story of the games I gave a neutral score.

...Can I justify giving this game a positive score in writing because it's so bad that it's good? That sounds horrible... and yet I kind of want to.

Tier Fates in the writing category twice? Including indicators to show which rank is "so bad so good", and which is "with a straight face and dour mind".

Edited January 11, 2021 by Interdimensional Observer

[Axie]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

But she does not suit the tone. Absolutely nothing about this character suits the tone that the writers were presumably going for, given that this is presumably a story of war and death that's supposed to make me cry. She's an incestuous, obsessive yandere psychopath wearing an assless and crotchless bodystocking, a black bikini bottom, an armored corset with a strap right between her tits, armored opera gloves, and armored thigh-high boots with 6-inch heels. Her every voiced line sounds like she's trying to get someone hard, even the ones she uses while talking to her blood relatives. This game already has serious issues mixing seriousness with wacky anime hijinks, but hooooooly shit is Camilla a microcosm of everything wrong with the tone of this game.

the worst part about camilla is that she acts the absolute exact same if your avatar is female, which to me reads as the developers just assuming girls don't play games because i think no woman would actually enjoy being on the receiving end of this, so why would they put a woman playing this (and therefore their avatar) through this? tharja wasn't anywhere this uncomfortable. camilla's behaviour on a dude would read as downright harassment. in fact i still kind of do read her as such. terrible character.

in writing. of course they also made her the absolute best one in gameplay so all the horndogs would have all the ease in the world using her and the rest of us would just have to put up with it. she's just irreplaceable in both conquest and revelation.

but yesssss i am so glad you love ththe fates gameplay so much because SAME. to me it's the definitive fire emblem format and i am mad they didn't keep building off it and instead apparently made three houses... partly build off echoes or something...? i don't know i haven't played it yet but fates seems to be much better. i really want these mechanics attached to a good storyline.

Edited January 11, 2021 by Axie

[Alastor15243]

29 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

As I wish to stay out of the Fates character-narrative stuff and stay Switzerland in my opinion of it by going Sakoku, I'll be skipping past all plot commentary FYI. As I mashed Start more than there are grains of sand on all the shores of the world with this game, I never once witnessed a Fates cutscene nor support. Still gonna be here for your gameplay remarks, I will much enjoy those.

You do you, and I hope you do in fact enjoy the gameplay commentary! Though I will concede that this decision has only made me more curious about what you actually think about the story if you're this intent on staying neutral.

19 minutes ago, Axie said:

the worst part about camilla is that she acts the absolute exact same if your avatar is female, which to me reads as the developers just assuming girls don't play games because i think no woman would actually enjoy being on the receiving end of this, so why would they put a woman playing this (and therefore their avatar) through this?

Curious, because the game gives me plenty of reason to suspect the game was designed with the female avatar in mind first, with the male avatar being the afterthought. I have several reasons to think this, but since we're on the topic of character outfits...

...If you'll notice, despite not having the thigh window and leotard... male Nohr Noble still doesn't have any armor in the crotch area. It's like they just designed the female outfit first, and then just did the bare minimum necessary to change it for the male one, getting rid of all the gender-specific sex appeal that would have looked ridiculous on him but without replacing it with anything else. They didn't make any attempt to make it cool or interesting at all, or to add anything in place of the design details they removed, which is really a shame, because I actually think that if you can get past the sex appeal, the female Nohr Noble outfit is really cool-looking. There's also the fact that they made character creation accessories for female Corrin but made no effort to make any counterpart for the male version.

The rest of my suspicions are story-based. Long story short, Corrin, regardless of gender, acts like basically half the female protagonists Fire Emblem has written.

19 minutes ago, Axie said:

but yesssss i am so glad you love ththe fates gameplay so much because SAME. to me it's the definitive fire emblem format and i am mad they didn't keep building off it and instead apparently made three houses... partly build off echoes or something...? i don't know i haven't played it yet but fates seems to be much better. i really want these mechanics attached to a good storyline.

It's like you're reading my damned mind. Fates is just amazing in so many ways, and it's become apparent through my marathon of this series that it really, really spoiled me in terms of ironmanning, and gave me standards that the rest of the series could, but refused to meet. Ironmanning the Fates games blind is an outright magical experience that I feel every Fire Emblem fan should experience.

I genuinely wish that the design philosophy of Fates, specifically Conquest but also to a lesser extent Birthright, caught on. Instead, possibly due to the negative reaction to basically everything but its gameplay, they seem to have written it off as a mistake and moved as far away from it as possible. And that... that makes me sad.

Edited January 11, 2021 by Alastor15243

[Jotari]

47 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

I genuinely wish that the design philosophy of Fates, specifically Conquest but also to a lesser extent Birthright, caught on. Instead, possibly due to the negative reaction to basically everything but its gameplay, they seem to have written it off as a mistake and moved as far away from it as possible. And that... that makes me sad.

What negative reaction? Fates sold incredibly well, even better than Awakening if I recall. Id also dispute that Three Houses built off of Shadows of Valentia. The only thing it really took inspiration from there was the magic and combat arts, and the turnwheel, which is obviously going to be a staple of the series henceforth (they even added it to the NES Shadow Dragon localisation). Id even go as far as to say stuff like linked attacks was based more off Fates than anything else. Though ultimately its clear Three Houses wanted to carve out its own style of gameplay with its free form class usage. That:s the real core of Three Houses design.

Fun fact, Revelations poor map design literally managed to soft lock me in one chapter. As in there was no possible way for me to complete the chapter because of a gimmick. I;ll reveal which one when we reach it.

Edited January 12, 2021 by Jotari

[Alastor15243]

8 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Fun fact, Revelations poor map design literally managed to soft lock me in one chapter. As in there was no possible way for me to complete the chapter because of a gimmick. I;ll reveal which one when we reach it.

Either there's more than one chapter that's like that (wouldn't be surprised) or I already know which one.

9 minutes ago, Jotari said:

What negative reaction? Fates sold incredibly well, even better than Awakening if I recall.

True, though I seem to remember there being some stuff that... visibly didn't go so well in a way that the higher-ups likely would've heard about. Can't quite remember what at the moment. Christ this has been a Fire Emblem filled year.

[Axie]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Curious, because the game gives me plenty of reason to suspect the game was designed with the female avatar in mind first, with the male avatar being the afterthought.

oh this is something i actually didn't notice and it's an interesting observation! granted, it doesn't change my actual grievance (the female avatar being apparently meant to be played by a male gamer), but still i never really noticed how f!corrin could be the default, and it makes sense. they indeed wrote corrin with all the bad writing habits they usually have for female lords lol.

 

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Instead, possibly due to the negative reaction to basically everything but its gameplay, they seem to have written it off as a mistake and moved as far away from it as possible. And that... that makes me sad.

if that's the case, then that's unfair because fates didn't really do anything that awakening already didn't in those regards, and some of those aspects weren't even really entirely dropped off in 3H, which still gives me almost as much the quirky anime shenanigans vibe as awakening did, at least in artwork and general characterisation. maybe 3H didn't have thinly handwaved incest lol but that's about the only thing fate really should have avoided. but i guess we will know how intsys truly feels with the next new game.

Edited January 12, 2021 by Axie

[Samz707]

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

...And then comes next chapter, where I'm greeted by my two maids bending over me in bed.

...A really huge bed, that I'm just laying on top of, in full armor, not even under a bedsheet.

Yep, and now we get a very slow rising panning shot of Elise and Camilla, which is almost certainly intended to give us a good look at Camilla, who...

...Look.

Camilla is goddamned gorgeous. The world of, ahem, “art” would be a poorer place if she and her outfit had never been invented.

But she does not suit the tone. Absolutely nothing about this character suits the tone that the writers were presumably going for, given that this is presumably a story of war and death that's supposed to make me cry. She's an incestuous, obsessive yandere psychopath wearing an assless and crotchless bodystocking, a black bikini bottom, an armored corset with a strap right between her tits, armored opera gloves, and armored thigh-high boots with 6-inch heels. Her every voiced line sounds like she's trying to get someone hard, even the ones she uses while talking to her blood relatives. This game already has serious issues mixing seriousness with wacky anime hijinks, but hooooooly shit is Camilla a microcosm of everything wrong with the tone of this game.

And the hilarious thing is that basically nobody reacts to her outrageously flirtatious “ara ara” behavior.

Camilla: Are you all right, Dakota? Did you get hurt at all during training practice? If you did, let me know right away so I can take extra-special care of you...

Dakota: (Casually smiling) I'm perfectly, fine Camilla. As always, thanks for your concern.

And then we get Elise, who is absolutely adorable. She's one of my favorite characters in the game in terms of gameplay and story, and she's probably my favorite staff user in Fire Emblem history in terms of gameplay. She's outrageously fragile, but this is actually a game where that doesn't matter! You don't need to live in perpetual fear of her being killed by ambush spawns because there are no ambush spawns!

...Yeah, uh... that's one of my thousands of complaints about this story. We really needed more time to get to know the royal families before being forced to choose between them. If they had just increased the prologue from 6 to 10 chapters, that would've made a huge difference. Maybe having a chapter showing the trip from the Northern Fortress to Castle Krakenburg, having all the Nohrian siblings team up with Corrin to fight off bandits or something.

Ah yes, and now we get to Elise doing the big spinning hug on Dakota, and...

Leo: Elise, when do you intend to behave like the adult that you technically are?

Yes, the line that's been memed into oblivion: this game attempting to pass off Elise as legal when she blatantly is not in order to make it less creepy that you can marry her.

 

...Ah yes.

Lilith.

...For absolutely no reason whatsoever, this character's appearance has prompted me to give this reminder in case any new readers are listening in: if you haven't played this game before and are just reading this for the sake of my commentary, well first, I'm... well I'm less flattered than I usually am that people are choosing this to be their first experience of any individual Fire Emblem game, but I'm still flattered. Nevertheless... beware rampant spoilers. I am going to be talking about shit before it happens whenever it becomes relevant to the discussion of shit currently happening. You have been warned.

Yeah, and now there's some cheesy exposition about how good Dakota is with animals, and talking about the “bird” that Dakota rescued a while back (which was actually Lilith, who is really an astral dragon who looks nothing like a fucking bird).

Lilith blushes when Elise insinuates she's got a crush on Dakota, which is weird because as the DLC reveals... Lilith is Dakota's literal blood sister.

Ah yes time for me to just barely know what's going on! (since I haven't played Fates.)

Seriously why are maids a combat class? That never made sense to me outside of maybe as a unlockable joke class, what next, Gong Farmer class? it'd make as much sense.

I remember a friend of mine who had played Fates sending me Camilla's intro, I was kinda surprised that was real, you know it's bad when Sonya from Echoes looks conservative, like I'm also a straight dude but there's a kinda time and place for this? and my perma-death war game isn't one for it.

Boy, it'd sure be silly if a future FE game had 3 different route splits but you had like two paragraphs of interactions with the 3 different characters before having to make a choice and there fore actually less about them than this game!

Corrin's design is pretty much a joke among me and my friends, I'm sure it's wonderful to charge through dirt, rocks, blood, arrows and other bladed weapons laying discarded on the ground and other stuff while barefoot, it's a miracle Corrin hasn't suffered from Gangrene.

I "like" how Elise looks 14 at most, yet the game insists she's an adult, that doesn't even fly in Japan considering how A: 14 isn't the age of consent of all of it and B: I've heard it mentioned off-handedly that even in those areas, there are people campaigning to have it raised.

I guess spoiler tags since I'm not sure how much you want to spoil, 

Spoiler

but isn't Azura also related to Corrin? yet the game pushes for that pairing. (Despite her actually dying in one route but Corrin's paired ending doesn't change.

 

Edited January 12, 2021 by Samz707

[Jotari]

27 minutes ago, Samz707 said:

Ah yes time for me to just barely know what's going on! (since I haven't played Fates.)

Seriously why are maids a combat class? That never made sense to me outside of maybe as a unlockable joke class, what next, Gong Farmer class? it'd make as much sense.

I remember a friend of mine who had played Fates sending me Camilla's intro, I was kinda surprised that was real, you know it's bad when Sonya from Echoes looks conservative, like I'm also a straight dude but there's a kinda time and place for this? and my perma-death war game isn't one for it.

Boy, it'd sure be silly if a future FE game had 3 different route splits but you had like two paragraphs of interactions with the 3 different characters before having to make a choice and there fore actually less about them than this game!

Corrin's design is pretty much a joke among me and my friends, I'm sure it's wonderful to charge through dirt, rocks, blood, arrows and other bladed weapons laying discarded on the ground and other stuff while barefoot, it's a miracle Corrin hasn't suffered from Gangrene.

I "like" how Elise looks 14 at most, yet the game insists she's an adult, that doesn't even fly in Japan considering how A: 14 isn't the age of consent of all of it and B: I've heard it mentioned off-handedly that even in those areas, there are people campaigning to have it raised.

I guess spoiler tags since I'm not sure how much you want to spoil, 

  Hide contents

but isn't Azura also related to Corrin? yet the game pushes for that pairing. (Despite her actually dying in one route but Corrin's paired ending doesn't change.

 

Ah yes, thats the thing I wanted to comment on in the original post that I forgot by the time Id finished the post. I think Fates does a decent enouigh job presenting the choice to the player with its three or so chapters of exposure to each side (well ignoring later retcons that destroy the Hoshido argument and make Ryoma into a lying bastard). Of course more would be preferable, but the more you add the more youre extending the length of the overall game, or reducing the length of the post choice game, so without dedicateding like an entire game to the pre choice selection and doing something like Tellius with a planned sequel, three or four chapters to either side is pretty much enough. And as bad as someone might find that, Fates handles its route split, far, far, far, far better than Three Houses.

Edited January 12, 2021 by Jotari

[Alastor15243]

2 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Ah yes, thats the thing I wanted to comment on in the original post that I forgot by the time Id finished the post. I think Fates does a decent enouigh job presenting the choice to the player with its three or so chapters of exposure to each side. Of course more would be preferable, but the more you add the more youre extending the length of the overall game, or reducing the length of the post choice game, so without dedicateding like an entire game to the pre choice selection and doing something like Tellius with a planned sequel, three or four chapters to either side is pretty much enough. And as bad as someone might find that, Fates handles its route split, far, far, far, far better than Three Houses.

Hard, hard agree. I'm struggling to even put into words all the nonsense wrong with 3H's route split. In the game's defense though, my biggest complaint, the fact that it makes you pick a side before you even understand what the sides are about, is technically also the case with Fates due to its business model. Which I think gets needless flak, acting like it's a scummy business practice. If it weren't for the fact that Rev is trash, you would literally be getting three full Fire Emblem games for the price of two, which is an insane bargain.