Fire Emblem series

[Berrakh]

I suspect that the Cleobulus character data using the male modifiers was due to default-zero circumstances. It was likely put in the game early and then dummied out as Cornelia's final roles were determined.

Big tits that you can see > speculation about a dummied model that can mean anything or nothing.

 

[TerrorSperg99]

And Flayn. And Ingrid. And Annette. And Mercedes.

Bernadetta and Marianne aren’t well adjusted at all so they’re not included.

Lysithea isn’t especially interested in doing good for others. Nor is Hilda. They’ll do it if it finds them but they’re pretty inward-looking. Edelgard starts a war. Dorothea is more actively willing to do good than these three but it’s not her life’s ambition and she’s definitely willing to be mean too (and is treated as way more of a mess than she really is so why not put her here). That’s all the very popular girls.

Between Catherine and Shamir, Shamir is the drinker and gambler and far more popular than Catherine whose main flaw is obeying her duty.

Sole outlier: Manuela. I guess she’s too old.

For boys it’s no question. Sylvain, Dimitri, and Felix take all the attention. Leaving nothing for anyone else. Most oligarchic arrangement I’ve seen in an FE game.

Ashe, Ferdinand, Lin, Caspar, Raphael, Ignatz, and especially the dads Seteth and Alois are all but ignored most of the time.

The only outlier is Hubert, and what people dislike about him is his redeeming moral quality (loyalty to Edelgard).

Or perhaps Lorenz but people treat him like a dork as well so he still fits the pattern. He’s not a prima donna like the Faerghus Three.

And Claude is (was) just a protest vote against Dimitri and Edelgard.

I really liked Claude as a character but I didn’t feel like he had that interesting of an arc. Dimitri becoming the rat king out of guilt and then finding peace with himself. Was more interesting in my opinion.Ironically when I first saw the trailer I thought Dimitri was going to be one of the more boring characters. Edelgard just came off as a stuck up bitch with a ridiculously stupid justification for her actions. I hear it’s better in three hopes but I haven’t played. Out of the side characters my favourite would have to be Marianne. I feel they did the shy innocent girl better with her. Bernadette I just came off as annoying and over the top.

 

[Lone MacReady]

Most have probably seen these, but for those (like me) who haven't yet, pretty amusing.

 

[Doctor of Autism]

I recently beat Three Hopes and it's a pretty decent game, that at best honestly serves as a decent compliment to Three Houses, but it does have it's issues.

Of the stories I felt Azure gleam was probably the best storywise with a pretty strong part 1 since Cornelia was actually a really good villain and the conflict was pretty much some great Blue Lions content. Things were more flawed in Part 2 mainly with how the main villains needed more screentime, Edelgard should've gone Hegemon mode in the final chapter, the support conversations in the secret chapters should've been rewritten a bit especially Claude and Dimitri's, and how Hubert/Ferdinand just died offscreen. While those sound like a lot of issues, it's honestly pretty minor to some degree as the route is pretty solid, however I wished Rhea was playable in the main story of this route.

Scarlet Blaze felt like it was playing it too safe since it just felt like an enhanced Crimson Flower but the main conflict wasn't that interesting and the route definitely peaked in the middle of Part 2 from the Aegir insurrection arc to the battle in the Valley of Torment. Final Battle was pretty boring and the most questionable ending of all the routes. Also Monica sucks, like she isn't the worst Fire Emblem character but she basically is almost like the lesbian version of Faye from Echoes and her kit sucked as well. Honestly disappointed how shit she was.

As for Golden Wildfire, it had the most interesting ideas but it honestly wasted many of them. Morally grey Claude is a great idea but some of his ambitions are pretty retarded with what the worldbuilding shows, and there are parts that unnecessarily recycle content from Scarlet Blaze. The endgame is actually pretty neat since the final battle was actually fun to play but the story was dumb especially with how the Church lacked any presence until the last two chapters. Holst was pretty cool though and probably the best of the new route-exclusive playable characters.

However each route has some common pros like the classmates actually feel more consequential to the plot and the secondary retainers were all cool (Ferdinand, Lorenz, and Felix) while the main ones really established themselves, and all the routes in this game complimented their respective routes in Houses.

 

[Berrakh]

As for Golden Wildfire, it had the most interesting ideas but it honestly wasted many of them. Morally grey Claude is a great idea but some of his ambitions are pretty retarded with what the worldbuilding shows

When Fodlan hates foreigners so you kill their archbishop as a foreigner.

Seeing more bad discourse lately. At first it was just stuff that annoyed me (Dorothea doesn’t accept a No from Ingrid when she does) but lately it’s become far more pervasive. Rodrigue is a bad father because *obviously* Felix is easygoing, Sylvain’s dad is bad because *obviously* Sylvain doesn’t know right from wrong, or how Hapi has really big tits when really they just sag like Brittany Venti’s.

Just all wrong. And bizarrely contradictory too. How is Doro a MeToo Horror Story but Sylvain is just misunderstood and not raised right? All gay. Everyone but me is wrong. Fed up with this world.

But in all seriousness it’s not very unusual for a played out fandom.
People just conflate their personal feelings and tiredness with the consensus with actually having a novel take shared by the game.

A lot of Rhea discourse to me is like this. The game does not present her as absolute evil or absolute good. She’s very much not that important to the story in a lot of ways, only the lore, but people want to take arbitrary sides

 

[Doctor of Autism]

When Fodlan hates foreigners so you kill their archbishop as a foreigner.

Not to mention it’s dumb since Fodlan doesn’t seem to really isolate themselves given they are open to interacting with outside countries like Duscur and the most hostile they are to foreigners is when it comes to the invading idiots.

Like the isolation angle doesn’t work if in another route they’re fine with sending aid to another country or having foreigners allowed to stay.

 

[Mysterious Autist XX]

A lot of Rhea discourse to me is like this. The game does not present her as absolute evil or absolute good. She’s very much not that important to the story in a lot of ways, only the lore, but people want to take arbitrary sides

Rhea's actions where also mostly good too.

 

[Flaming Insignias]

Rhea's actions where also mostly good too.

I stand by my belief that Rhea is a case of a good person who made well-intentioned mistakes and compromises that lead to disasters that she could never truly fix. The only time she really becomes malicious is Crimson Flower's endgame, and by that time she had lost her home and family to Byleth and Edelgard, both of whom were leading a war of aggression devoted to completing the Nabatean Genocide as if they were Nemesis Reborn. Otherwise, she seems to genuinely care for the wellbeing of Fodlan and its people, even if the Church's neutrality shackles the ability to take meaningful change.

 

[Berrakh]

I stand by my belief that Rhea is a case of a good person who made well-intentioned mistakes and compromises that lead to disasters that she could never truly fix. The only time she really becomes malicious is Crimson Flower's endgame, and by that time she had lost her home and family to Byleth and Edelgard, both of whom were leading a war of aggression devoted to completing the Nabatean Genocide as if they were Nemesis Reborn. Otherwise, she seems to genuinely care for the wellbeing of Fodlan and its people, even if the Church's neutrality shackles the ability to take meaningful change.

I can agree with that. But really she’s just a proxy in the discourse about edelgard.

Which is the curdling of the fanbase I describe. A loss of straightforwardness. Everyone but me being gay and wrong. Etc.

 

[Leaf Wage Slave]

I stand by my belief that Rhea is a case of a good person who made well-intentioned mistakes and compromises that lead to disasters that she could never truly fix.

I say it mostly as a joke, but most of the issues in Three Houses (haven’t played Hopes, can’t say there) could’ve been avoided if basically everyone not named Claude just went to see a goddamn therapist.

Or picked anything besides Communication as their dump stat.

Ah well - least neither can be as bad as Fates

 

[Girl Named Sandoz]

 

[Quartermaster]

I can with great confidence say that writing was never the series' strong suit.
It's always been the same usual anime nonsense that's barely worth talking about.

The only worthwhile thing coming from the writing was the characters, really.
Some of the characters are pretty neat though not many of them are really able to have much development or story to them due to the gameplay.

What I do not understand personally is the discourse surrounding Three Houses.

I was personally really annoyed by the main character and their sidekick loli goddess.
The characters in 3H seem fine enough, I can see people getting attached to them but what I don't understand is why they are praised to this large an extent.

I feel as though the 3H cast is about on the same level as the average FE cast, only that there is more words written for them.
It's nothing new, not much of an improvement. The quality hasn't changed much, there is just more of the same.

And considering the gameplay of 3H? It's a huge step backwards overall with shitty map design, lack of objectives...It's like playing Echoes or Shadow Dragon but with more broken shit.

All while ignoring the horrifying monastery BS.

What am I missing? Why do people like this game?

 

[Namnathan93]

https://youtube.com/watch?v=7IumQZPrthU

Guaranted crit actually a thing in gba series with suitable supports build and skill capped plus killer weapons equipped

 

[Flaming Insignias]

Guaranted crit actually a thing in gba series with suitable supports build and skill capped plus killer weapons equipped

Rutger was a… special case.

 

[Berrakh]

I can with great confidence say that writing was never the series' strong suit.
It's always been the same usual anime nonsense that's barely worth talking about.

The only worthwhile thing coming from the writing was the characters, really.
Some of the characters are pretty neat though not many of them are really able to have much development or story to them due to the gameplay.

What I do not understand personally is the discourse surrounding Three Houses.

I was personally really annoyed by the main character and their sidekick loli goddess.
The characters in 3H seem fine enough, I can see people getting attached to them but what I don't understand is why they are praised to this large an extent.

I feel as though the 3H cast is about on the same level as the average FE cast, only that there is more words written for them.
It's nothing new, not much of an improvement. The quality hasn't changed much, there is just more of the same.

And considering the gameplay of 3H? It's a huge step backwards overall with shitty map design, lack of objectives...It's like playing Echoes or Shadow Dragon but with more broken shit.

All while ignoring the horrifying monastery BS.

What am I missing? Why do people like this game?

It’s definitely the case. Fire Emblem is an excuse for battles and ‘dramatic moments’ with 3H just being the most popular.

It’s not even like FF7 or OoT where it’s not the best at any one thing but the best package. Just the most popular for console and marketing reasons.

Edelgard is a good example. One side won’t admit she’s the villain, the other side won’t admit she’s not one dimensionally irrational. Not helped by how the story fails to really make the case Edelgard’s story is set up to make: that sometimes you have to force things to change, or else the status quo will preempt you.

Popular fandoms end up like this. Bifurcated and incapable of separating themselves from the story’s own purposes for a character/story. So the most popular and most discussed characters are the very relatable/familiar ones people like to project onto even if they’re not deep enough

 

[Sergeant Major Buzzkill]

That guy tends to only do neg reacts to stuff he disagrees with and never tries to actually discuss it from what I have seen from him in this thread so its best to just ignore him.

Does he have to? No need to comment every single time, y'know, even when you personally disagree.

It’s definitely the case. Fire Emblem is an excuse for battles and ‘dramatic moments’ with 3H just being the most popular.

True that. At least it's (a little) fun, though?

 

[Doctor of Autism]

I can with great confidence say that writing was never the series' strong suit.
It's always been the same usual anime nonsense that's barely worth talking about.

The only worthwhile thing coming from the writing was the characters, really.
Some of the characters are pretty neat though not many of them are really able to have much development or story to them due to the gameplay.

What I do not understand personally is the discourse surrounding Three Houses.

I was personally really annoyed by the main character and their sidekick loli goddess.
The characters in 3H seem fine enough, I can see people getting attached to them but what I don't understand is why they are praised to this large an extent.

I feel as though the 3H cast is about on the same level as the average FE cast, only that there is more words written for them.
It's nothing new, not much of an improvement. The quality hasn't changed much, there is just more of the same.

And considering the gameplay of 3H? It's a huge step backwards overall with shitty map design, lack of objectives...It's like playing Echoes or Shadow Dragon but with more broken shit.

All while ignoring the horrifying monastery BS.

What am I missing? Why do people like this game?

I really like this game myself but the reason this game does resonate with people compared to previous games is that outside of Echoes, it's the first Fire Emblem game in a long time that had had more depth to its story especially given previous games were the most vanilla anime stuff (Awakening) or a complete dumpster fire (Fates), not to mention even before Awakening there were the FE1/FE3 remakes which were not very good and other games like Warriors 1 and Tokyo Mirage Sessions which were shit. It felt more like a return to form for Fire Emblem in the story department after a lot of weeb stuff especially with how Awakening was the most milked game in the series because of how it revived interest in the series.

Basically it has more to do with pretty much every new Fire Emblem game after Radiant Dawn to be very cookie cutter story-wise at best or a complete trashfire at worst. Three Houses was a breath of fresh air and it helped it has some genuinely good story elements (Mainly in Azure Moon which is probably the strongest of the four routes) and a lot of worldbuilding behind it.

Echoes was great as well but it was still a remake of a pre-existing game that while it is great in terms of how it expanded on almost everything outside of gameplay, its story had a blueprint before that they worked on.

 

[Quartermaster]

Due to the weeb influx of newfags during the 3ds era this lead to troons and other Alphabets flooding in when 3H came out making it troon's first FE

Yeah, I haven't really considered that it's many people's first FE.
I don't really see 3H pander to troons and letters though, the Japanese don't know what an SJW is yet.

It’s definitely the case. Fire Emblem is an excuse for battles and ‘dramatic moments’ with 3H just being the most popular.

It’s not even like FF7 or OoT where it’s not the best at any one thing but the best package. Just the most popular for console and marketing reasons.

Edelgard is a good example. One side won’t admit she’s the villain, the other side won’t admit she’s not one dimensionally irrational. Not helped by how the story fails to really make the case Edelgard’s story is set up to make: that sometimes you have to force things to change, or else the status quo will preempt you.

Popular fandoms end up like this. Bifurcated and incapable of separating themselves from the story’s own purposes for a character/story. So the most popular and most discussed characters are the very relatable/familiar ones people like to project onto even if they’re not deep enough

I found Edelgard to be a rather silly character in her route.
The way she not so subtly asks things like "Uh, Professor? If say, hypothetically, one of your students would start a war...would you stay by that student's side? Asking for a friend."

Otherwise, yeah, she serves her role well as a driving force.
I just do not understand why people feel the need to justify her actions.
A good character doesn't have to be my best friend.

Suppose I should also mention I only completed Golden Deer and got halfway through Black Eagles before just dropping 3H because the Monastery stuff is just monotonous.

I really like this game myself but the reason this game does resonate with people compared to previous games is that outside of Echoes, it's the first Fire Emblem game in a long time that had had more depth to its story especially given previous games were the most vanilla anime stuff (Awakening) or a complete dumpster fire (Fates), not to mention even before Awakening there were the FE1/FE3 remakes which were not very good and other games like Warriors 1 and Tokyo Mirage Sessions which were shit. It felt more like a return to form for Fire Emblem in the story department after a lot of weeb stuff especially with how Awakening was the most milked game in the series because of how it revived interest in the series.

Basically it has more to do with pretty much every new Fire Emblem game after Radiant Dawn to be very cookie cutter story-wise at best or a complete trashfire at worst. Three Houses was a breath of fresh air and it helped it has some genuinely good story elements (Mainly in Azure Moon which is probably the strongest of the four routes) and a lot of worldbuilding behind it.

Echoes was great as well but it was still a remake of a pre-existing game that while it is great in terms of how it expanded on almost everything outside of gameplay, its story had a blueprint before that they worked on.

I'm not so sure I agree with the notion that 3H is particulary "deep".

Like I said, there is very little improvement in terms of writing, the volume has just increased.
You can take any reasonably well written character from a past game and compare it to a 3H character and you will see that they're about on par.

I am of the mindset that less is more when it comes to JRPGs as they tend to be very drawn out, long and emotionally stunted.

Echoes did a phenomenal job adding to Gaiden's story and fleshing the world out just a little more. It does just enough to give each character well, character (with some very hit or miss cases like Maye and Gray) and the voice acting was great as well.
It's just a pity that the gameplay and map design is absolute garbage and has kept me from completing it more than once.

I really enjoyed Shadow Dragon actually, surprisingly enough it was the gameplay that kept me around for a long time. Sure, Maddening (forgot the name of the 5* difficulty) was not in any way playtested but I think after chapter 4 it becomes more reasonable as your options increase.
Also, what little writing there is in Shadow Dragon like the pre-chapter text and the few actual conversations Marth has are actually really good, I suggest you read them next time you play.

 

[Doctor of Autism]

Yeah, I haven't really considered that it's many people's first FE.
I don't really see 3H pander to troons and letters though, the Japanese don't know what an SJW is yet.

I found Edelgard to be a rather silly character in her route.
The way she not so subtly asks things like "Uh, Professor? If say, hypothetically, one of your students would start a war...would you stay by that student's side? Asking for a friend."

Otherwise, yeah, she serves her role well as a driving force.
I just do not understand why people feel the need to justify her actions.
A good character doesn't have to be my best friend.

Suppose I should also mention I only completed Golden Deer and got halfway through Black Eagles before just dropping 3H because the Monastery stuff is just monotonous.

I'm not so sure I agree with the notion that 3H is particulary "deep".

Like I said, there is very little improvement in terms of writing, the volume has just increased.
You can take any reasonably well written character from a past game and compare it to a 3H character and you will see that they're about on par.

I am of the mindset that less is more when it comes to JRPGs as they tend to be very drawn out, long and emotionally stunted.

Echoes did a phenomenal job adding to Gaiden's story and fleshing the world out just a little more. It does just enough to give each character well, character (with some very hit or miss cases like Maye and Gray) and the voice acting was great as well.
It's just a pity that the gameplay and map design is absolute garbage and has kept me from completing it more than once.

I really enjoyed Shadow Dragon actually, surprisingly enough it was the gameplay that kept me around for a long time. Sure, Maddening (forgot the name of the 5* difficulty) was not in any way playtested but I think after chapter 4 it becomes more reasonable as your options increase.
Also, what little writing there is in Shadow Dragon like the pre-chapter text and the few actual conversations Marth has are actually really good, I suggest you read them next time you play.

Well I say deep only in comparison to pretty much games from Awakening onwards (barring the remakes of FE1-3 since while I do not like FE11/FE12, they were based on the earliest of Fire emblem games and were an experiment), like Awakening was your typical shonen friendship story while Fates was just an experiment. Like there is more known about Three Houses' world

But I do agree that Echoes is phenomenal since the gameplay and map design is pretty much ass yet basic (like the only exceptions I can think of are all the fights from Rudolf onward). I do think overall it has a more tightly knit story with a very good cast of villains (Berkut is probably the best Fire Emblem villain from the games I played).

Three Houses does have some story issues like Azure Moon works perfectly well as a story, but Crimson Flower feels too rushed, and Silver Snow/Verdant Wind needed to be more different from each other. Like aside from Azure Moon the other routes are pretty much carried by the characters and the personal conflicts they have. It doesn't help that the villains that are not playable characters are pretty much mid-tier with some exceptions (mostly the Slithers) and Edelgard is pretty great in the routes which are not her own, outside of Verdant Wind where they recycled her death scene from Silver Snow which feels so weirdly out of place.

 

[Berrakh]

The way she not so subtly asks things like "Uh, Professor? If say, hypothetically, one of your students would start a war...would you stay by that student's side? Asking for a friend."

It’s a little more subtle than that but that’s also pretty par for the course for FE. Nobody can lie. If they are a liar they’re about as subtle as Grima Wormtongue, or can magically change shape so writers don’t need to think about why their deception is believed.