Do you like Camilla?

[Lemmy]

I remember liking her, but my memory of most of her supports faded, I have the impression of a broken woman desperate for control, and I like that depth/mystery, but my last memory is of her recent Engage recruitment, and her conversation with Corrin lowered my opinion of both.

[Chrom-ulent]

I'm still salty she was the first unit to get all three of a red, blue, and green mage alt, when she has a -1 to her max magic skill in Fates.

[Metal Flash]

Despite not being a fan of her design, I like her well enough in non-Corrin supports. Her being a mama bear to her younger siblings is cute and her Beruka support is neat. Is a unit I always use whenever I play Conquest because of how good she is.

[Hawkwing]

In regards to gameplay, Camilla is a strong and reliable unit with a straightforward and useful personal skill. She can handle a lot of what Conquest throws at you without being an automatic "I win" button. I'm not a fan of the developer favoritism the royals got, so I tend to use the retainers more than them (with the exception of Elise and Sakura, as I'm not saying no to an extra healer), but when push comes to shove, I have no qualms deploying them during the harder levels.

My main critique is Camilla's lack of a personal weapon, which applies to all the female royals across both games. The dudes legendary weapons are fun to use and are a big part of their gameplay identity, and it's a shame they're limited to already strong units. I'd be down with being able to forge the female royals legendary weapons as part of the games story, so you could have the choice between, say, giving Camilla a powerful axe or devastating tome.

 

I'm not a fan of Camilla's characterization, though I would be lying if I said I wasn't interested in seeing how she would be handled in the alternative universe where Fates was competently written. While I found almost all of her dialogue to be creepy, I got the impression that it was the result of a messed up backstory that twisted her perception of the world. Had this been further developed, I may still have found her character disturbing, but that could have been more intentional, with potential layers to her character that could be interesting to dissect. As is, while there are glimpses of depth, a lot Camilla's actions and dialogue come off as the writers being horny.

Complaining about Camilla's outfit is a dead horse at this point. It's still one of the worse designs in the entire series and I don't get the impression they even tried to make it look like "armor". The cutscenes focusing on her chest and behind just give a shallow impression of her character. I have to enjoy Fates in spite of these aspects.

 

I agree that it is annoying how much attention Camilla gets in side material and how many alts she has in Heroes. There are plenty of other characters that I would say are more deserving of the spotlight. Perhaps the most frustrating aspect with how much attention Camilla gets is how little they do with her character. They've had multiple opportunities to make her more well rounded and give her more depth, and they keep squandering it in favor of giving Camilla yet another outfit.

[rdrouyn]

As a unit she is well designed. Powerful, but not overwhelmingly so. Malig Knight is one of the coolest classes to be introduced in recent years and she excels in it. 

As far as her design goes, it does nothing for me. I prefer grounded, realistic designs in general and she is waaay too exaggerated to be appealing in the "fan-service" sense. Reminds me of Jessica Rabbit. The games make the same type of jokes with her as "Who framed Roger Rabbit" did with Jessica. The designer must've been a fan of that movie. The game treats her like a joke so it is impossible to take her seriously in any way, shape or form. Her past only gets explored in one support with Niles but it is an afterthought. Like one of the employees who actually played a Fire Emblem game remembered that supports needed to include interesting stuff such as backstory every once in a while and stuck that in. 

Other than that, she's ok. 

Edited February 23, 2023 by rdrouyn

[Eltosian Kadath]

No I don't. Her obsession with a character she considers her sibling is made creepier by us being forced into the role of the person whom she imposes her unwanted sexual affections on. Her design is oversexualized, and the camera's constant use of the male gaze makes clear that the developers have made her this way to "please" the player, which adds the further discomfort of it feeling like we were forcefully made complicit in her creation, because they made her this wad for "us". From a gameplay perspective I find her uninteresting to use, as I don't need her hand-holding me through the game.

[Magenta Fantasies]

Camilla ties with Jakob and Corrin as my favorite Fire Emblem character. She’s one of the very rare characters who I liked immediately from her first scene, and continued to like as I saw more of her. As I kept playing and saw more supports, the onion layers peeled back. 

While I think the sheer number of supports in Fates is a blessing or a curse depending on the character, Camilla (as well as Corrin and Jakob) benefits because we get to see different sides of her personality come through when she converses with different characters. I saw some positive qualities, some negative qualities, and some surprising qualities that made her an even more compelling character. Camilla is as loving to her allies as she is fierce to her enemies, and I love her for it. In general, I’m a fan of characters who are ruthless for the right reasons. She’s also fascinating in that she has some yandere tendencies, but in a platonic, overprotective sisterly way. I’d like to see this done more often; it’s far more interesting than an archetypal yandere.

From a unit standpoint, she’s one of my favorites units to use in any Fire Emblem game. She’s a very powerful unit without being invincible/broken, and her combination of axes, magic and flight is a blast to use. (We need Malig Knights in more games!) Other characters can be made Malig Knights, but other than Corrin (or maybe with significant investment Jakob or Beruka, or with the right parent Shigure, Percy or Dwyer) Camilla is the best option for this class.

[eternalmatthew]

I find her quite funny. I've always seen her as a sort of foil to the archetype. Like the designers were brainstorming and thought screw it.

Gameplay wise she's fun to use. Both magic and axe at the same time. Though I always found myself using Beruka more. I'm not sure why. 

[Seazas]

She would've been better without the Corrin obsession. Their conversation together really reminded me of how badly Camilla's written with a few interesting concepts.

[TheClumsyGamer]

she isn't my cup of tea as character, it's clear that she was made for fan service purposes and it's something i don't enjoy in games in general, they make me cringe 99% of the time. i prefer interesting plots over fan service.