End game reflections are story discussion. Spoilers.

[Seazas]

1 minute ago, BloodRonin said:

I wonder if the emblem of foundations is really just Alear or a version of them? With time travel and the well, assuming it let's you travel worlds, I wouldn't put it past Alear to try and go back and save Sombrom. Sort of like what would happen if he had a different upbringing or something. Sombron looks at his children before he dies and says he can see the emblem of foundations. 

Or it could be some made up character. The game was fun and overall story was okay at best. I wouldn't be surprised if we never get a cannon answer

I don't believe it's Alear at all or meant to amount to anything. It's 100% just an intentional unanswered question, my theory is that it's just a random made up character that parallels Kaga. It makes the most sense why the writing completely dances around the name even when both Alear and Sombron did the emblem enchantment. It'd make sense for the 30th anniversary game.

[Acacia Sgt]

6 minutes ago, Seazas said:

Having Alear job to a random corrupted would be a really bad plot point. It's what made Lilith's sacrifice in Fates fundamentally fail.

Then combine the subconscious PTSD element to it, then.

Or it doesn't have to be a Corrupted, then.

[Aedan7479]

3 hours ago, DefyingFates said:

Yeah, I hope they just let the rewinding just be a mechanic going forward instead of being an in-universe thing. Granted, Chapter 11 was great for it and it was handled much better than the Turnwheel, but still... I'd rather they make that distinction ASAP instead of ending up with some "babyrealm"-tier justification in FE18 or 19.

I agree with this; building off of that, it feels like to story mostly exists to supplement the gameplay. Losing the emblems in Chapter 11, which forces you to experiment and gives some bosses emblems, there's also the time crystal which has already been mentioned, and even the shape of the map is designed for linear progression.

Also, where in existence does the Prologue fit into things? It serves as a Prologue, but fits in absolutely nowhere storywise. And what's with that dream where fell Alear has that wicked smile (the 'Crimson Memories cutscene if anyone wants to check), we're lead to believe that Fell Alear was actually wicked like Evil Veyle, which A) contradicts what we see later, and B) personally speaking, is less interesting than what we got anyway, so what was the point? A *clears throat* 'red' herring?

[Jotari]

4 hours ago, DefyingFates said:

Oh, this would have been cool too (I was looking forward to more Corrupted!Alear at the time myself), though it'd probably require locking off all Bond Conversations until their re-rebirth.

So which death would you move, and to where?

Ah, I used tags mostly because I had written up a large text wall (but also because spoiler talk gets me a bit antsy in general, I suppose).

First: ouch to that pun.

Second, I never thought aboutt aging her up but that would make more sense (and she would fit in better with the others). As it stands, I think it'd make sense if she was especially sadistic or talented, so one day while checking out the orphanage/ school Marni was in Zephia pointed at her and said "I think that one would be useful, she works for me now". I think that's in character for her, both as a sadist herself and as someone with a warped understanding of what being a mother is.

Naturally, head canons shouldn't be used to fix holes in canon material, but I think that's simple enough that if we get an interview like the one that revealed Claude's real name and this was listed as Marni's origin as a Hound I wouldn't be surprised.

Also, I'm glad my post resonated with you! Did you also agree with my suggested fixes, or just the raised points?

Yeah, I agree with the fixes. Well maybe "more tine with the Hounds" is a bit non specific. You can give a character hours of screentime, but they'll still be a weak character if they're not written as a strong character no matter how much we see them. The hounds need to do something woth extra screen time they have. But...yeahn writings hard. 

1 hour ago, Seazas said:

Having Alear job to a random corrupted would be a really bad plot point. It's what made Lilith's sacrifice in Fates fundamentally fail.

Hard agree here. Alear dying randomly at some midpoint wiuld be poor. If we're killing the protagonist it needs to have some drama. I think the solution to the "dying twice" problem people have is to simply have them die once, as has already been suggested. Just give us a line from Veyle saying its not working or something and have those embers float off them throughout the chapter. 

39 minutes ago, Aedan7479 said:

Also, where in existence does the Prologue fit into things? It serves as a Prologue, but fits in absolutely nowhere storywise.

Yeah, that had me scratching my head too. I assumed it would be something that happens later in the game like Awakening...but then it just doesn't. So was it the past when Sombron was defeated the first time?...probably, but then who were all those people? Identical ancestors? It almost feels like a dropped plot point from the time travel, or worse, an early draft that somehow got left in the script.

[Metal Flash]

As much I don`t care for either of them, I feel like Marnie or even Griss would have made for more interesting recruits than Mauvier. Marnie could have been given some character growth, showing she could be better than when she was a Hound. Griss would`ve been an interesting "loose cannon" ally everyone was uneasy around, but they prefer him being an ally rather than an enemy. Either scenario would`ve been more interesting than plain old Mauvier joining if you ask me.

I also wish they had stuck to Veyle being evil. Having a non-possessed/controlled evil "Tiki" would have been an interesting change of pace for the series. In addition, should she still join the player`s army, now there wouldn`t be the "that wasn`t really you" excuse for her to hide behind, so characters can be genuine in their resentment of what she has done. Heck, it could even lead into a interesting redemption arc if they wanted to play that angle.

Just some thoughts I had.

[DefyingFates]

7 hours ago, Jotari said:

Yeah, I agree with the fixes.

Oh cool, thanks! I'm glad my suggestions worked for someone else too!

7 hours ago, Jotari said:

Well maybe "more tine with the Hounds" is a bit non specific. You can give a character hours of screentime, but they'll still be a weak character if they're not written as a strong character no matter how much we see them. The hounds need to do something woth extra screen time they have. But...yeahn writings hard. 

I agree, I should have been clearer about that: I wanted the extra screentime to go to fleshing out the relationships within the Hounds, and hinting at the backstories as I mentioned before. You wouldn't even need to go super into detail about them either, just a few mentions to show that each Hound has some baggage that made them who they are now. Now that I think about it, I think Veyle and Mauvier's pasts were built up at a good rate. Of course those two were leading up to their Supports, but I think their approach could have worked for the others regardless.

7 hours ago, Jotari said:

Just give us a line from Veyle saying its not working or something and have those embers float off them throughout the chapter. 

Reading this it occurred to me that if Alear started fading as soon as they summoned Marth, the rest of the chapter could have been put on a time limit until Alear died again, with them holding on through sheer force of will until all the Rings were reclaimed. On one hand, that may have made the chapter too tough, but on the other hand: it would have been a really cool set piece and a great character moment for Alear! But hindsight is 20:20 and all that.

7 hours ago, Jotari said:

...probably, but then who were all those people? Identical ancestors?

Considering Alfred has Lucina and what she mentions about being with Firene 1000 years ago, I think this was the intention. At least, that's what my brain defaulted to when it became apparent that this was a flashback and not a flash-forward to a future event.

I agree that it's weird that it's never brought up again though. Ditto for "evil" Alear in their memories, but I guess that could be a mix of their head being messed up in the present or them having a sadistic side that only came out in battle (considering all the stress they built up working for Sombron, I can honestly understand that happening once they were allowed to fight without being scared of him killing them for "showing weakness").

As for them having the two-toned hair and eyes in the past, I think that's just Alear remembering incorrectly (and to avoid spoiling us).

...but all of this is very much theorizing to fill the gaps, much moreso than the earlier stuff, and likewise is something I'm even more suspicious will be explained in an interview*. The flashbacks in general could definitely have used some more explanation in-story though.

* or the manga, assuming it doesn't skip or rewrite the flashbacks altogether: it's already skipped the prologue battle, after all.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Metal Flash said:

As much I don`t care for either of them, I feel like Marnie or even Griss would have made for more interesting recruits than Mauvier. Marnie could have been given some character growth, showing she could be better than when she was a Hound. Griss would`ve been an interesting "loose cannon" ally everyone was uneasy around, but they prefer him being an ally rather than an enemy. Either scenario would`ve been more interesting than plain old Mauvier joining if you ask me.

But poor old Mauvier would be so terrible if he wasn't playable.  And if all the hounds were playable we'd be im Awakening's revolving door of vallins. Assuming we get only one playable hound, Mauvieris the best choice for balancing them all as characters. 

[Metal Flash]

49 minutes ago, Jotari said:

But poor old Mauvier would be so terrible if he wasn't playable.  And if all the hounds were playable we'd be im Awakening's revolving door of vallins. Assuming we get only one playable hound, Mauvieris the best choice for balancing them all as characters. 

I would still rather have Griss or Marnie playable, but I see your point.

[Seazas]

I concede that making her evil would be awesome, extremely unique for the franchise. But it'd ultimately remove a diverse recruitable character. However, her being fully evil and still recruitable is the worst of both worlds. You can't make an obnoxiously evil character like that recruitable, there is zero justification for why the blatant evil for sake of evil character would be saved instead of slain. I'd hate Veyle if she were genuinely evil and recruitable.

She willingly did far too much bad, it'd be what happened to Peri but 10x worse since Veyle consciously hurt, threatened, and killed far too many people including those that were close to a lot of our main cast. It'd be character assassination for Alear and everyone to just be written to accept her in their ranks.

Edited March 30, 2023 by Seazas

[DefyingFates]

54 minutes ago, Seazas said:

It'd be character assassination for Alear and everyone to just be written to accept her in their ranks.

Absolutely. I actually like the approach they took with her: she has a split personality but is still repentant about her actions (with Ivy and Hortensia in particular still holding grudges) so it's not like they were completely swept under the rug.

[Metal Flash]

20 hours ago, Seazas said:

I concede that making her evil would be awesome, extremely unique for the franchise. But it'd ultimately remove a diverse recruitable character. However, her being fully evil and still recruitable is the worst of both worlds. You can't make an obnoxiously evil character like that recruitable, there is zero justification for why the blatant evil for sake of evil character would be saved instead of slain. I'd hate Veyle if she were genuinely evil and recruitable.

She willingly did far too much bad, it'd be what happened to Peri but 10x worse since Veyle consciously hurt, threatened, and killed far too many people including those that were close to a lot of our main cast. It'd be character assassination for Alear and everyone to just be written to accept her in their ranks.

Fair point, that would suck pretty badly.

[BloodRonin]

On 3/30/2023 at 4:01 AM, Metal Flash said:

Griss would`ve been an interesting "loose cannon" ally everyone was uneasy around, but they prefer him being an ally rather than an enemy.

Could not agree more. 

[Barren]

Sombrom to me is just a standard dick with the lines of a Saturday morning cartoon villian.

[cpsy1991]

I remain perpetually baffled as to what the point of the Emblem of Foundations was; Sombron could've worked just fine as a broken victim of his war obsessed with revenge for what he lost without introducing something that breaks every rule about how Emblems work and ultimately ends up being dropped with absolutely no clarification whatsoever.

Hell, I'm half convinced it wasn't an Emblem so much as the equivalent of an imaginary friend- what, did you think the fact that in the end only Sombron could see him was just some special connection he had to it when all the evidence points to him simply being delusional? It's honestly the most sensible explanation.  Even the "it's a parallel to Kaga" idea doesn't really have much evidence to justify it beyond the fact that it's an anniversary title. 

Edited April 9, 2023 by cpsy1991

[iloveflash]

I would've forgiven a lot of the poor writing if they'd just let Alear stay dead in chapter 22. From a gameplay perspective, you lose a pretty strong character, but then you gain the most powerful Emblem ring in the game. Maybe you can even do a paralogue with him to make him stronger, like you do with the other Emblems. Have Veyle take over as the Divine Dragon or something. That's a whole chapter's worth of content right there, Veyle learning to summon emblems the Divine Dragon way as opposed to the Fell Dragon way.

At first that's where I thought the story was going, and I was so ready to praise this game to high heaven for doing something so bold. Then Alear came back to life for real. Even kept his old hairstyle. I was so confuse.

It seems like the writers had a directive to come up with 5,000 lines of dialogue for bond conversations, and the voice actors had to record "I'm not a child anymore" 50,000 times, so there wasn't much time to do anything else.

[Jotari]

31 minutes ago, iloveflash said:

I would've forgiven a lot of the poor writing if they'd just let Alear stay dead in chapter 22. From a gameplay perspective, you lose a pretty strong character, but then you gain the most powerful Emblem ring in the game. Maybe you can even do a paralogue with him to make him stronger, like you do with the other Emblems. Have Veyle take over as the Divine Dragon or something. That's a whole chapter's worth of content right there, Veyle learning to summon emblems the Divine Dragon way as opposed to the Fell Dragon way.

At first that's where I thought the story was going, and I was so ready to praise this game to high heaven for doing something so bold. Then Alear came back to life for real. Even kept his old hairstyle. I was so confuse.

It seems like the writers had a directive to come up with 5,000 lines of dialogue for bond conversations, and the voice actors had to record "I'm not a child anymore" 50,000 times, so there wasn't much time to do anything else.

Wouldn't even have needed to lose Alear as a gameplay unit. Veyle could have pulled a Nils and inherited Alear's stats. Though I do like how we have a magic option for a dragon unit...then again again I feel like Alear's class should have had some magic abilities to begin with.

[Mizerous]

On 2/18/2023 at 2:06 AM, Jotari said:

Group writing projects can definitely work, but it's almost always vital to have one leading visionary. An auteur, so to speak. I think the best a disperate group of writers under the supervision of a powerful marketing team can do for trying to tell a serious Fire Emblem story is Three Houses (that being said, I actually like Engage's story a lot more than Three House's, but it clearly is a less ambitious and seriously considered work).

And this really isn't going to change. Because modern Fire Emblem's approach has been working. Having these cookie cutter, market researched, trend following, low risk animesque stories is giving them massive success. Far more than Fire Emblem was in its early years where there was one creative lead. Which will make it quite interesting to see how they handle the inevitable Genealogy if Holy War remake, which was Kaga's most ambitious and daring attempt and epic story telling.

Sales might say otherwise if Engage dips below 1 million IS might get scared and change course.