Fire Emblem series

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So I got into the series with the fates games and was wondering if the Swtich games are any good?
Three Houses I admittedly have a soft spot for, but that’s because you can make all your units into whatever you want with enough time and NG+ runs, and I like seeing the kind of broken shit I can produce. Games honestly easy to just solo with the MC or any of the Lords - maps full of chokes, easy to over level after a certain point, AI might be retarded unless you’re on Maddening where it cheats…

Three Hopes is a Warriors game. If you’ve played one, you’ve basically played them all - they have their template and apparently it works.

Engage feels a lot like Fates Conquest route - the story is ass, which likely wasn’t helped by the localization team in any way, but the gameplay’s great and the maps actually become challenging enough you can’t just steamroll them with the MC.
 
So I got into the series with the fates games and was wondering if the Swtich games are any good?
If you like Conquest, Engage is like Conquest 2.0 but with more general QoL. Shit ass story, though I like the main character a little bit more then Corncob, but the gameplay is imo generally great. Challenging enough, but not horse shit annoying garbage like 3H's ambush spawns or extremely obnoxious early game if you try to make it hard. Hard mode in Engage is also a reasonable challenge unlike 3H hard mode which is just Journalist difficulty+ imo, so you can have a little bit of bite without needing to struggle too much if you need that.

3 Houses is a far more competent story, I personally don't think it is nearly as good as many do but to call it terrible is overdramatic while Fates/Engage are pretty bad stories that are at best meh with some okay characters somewhere if you dig through supports, and I find the general gameplay to be a little too eh but many agree or disagree on 3H's gameplay.

I'd say if you want more then some challenging anime rpg chess, I'd play 3 houses, but if you're looking for a reasonably challenging anime chess I'd go with Engage because 3H has two modes, practically game journalism mode or bullshit mode.

Hopes is a Warriors game, not an SRPG, it is as far as I understand pretty much a big "what-if" to 3H's second half timeskip part of the plot which tries to do different things with the characters and scenario. It is a nice supplemental piece if you like 3 houses' plot, but I wouldn't play it without 3 houses first.

Engage feels a lot like Fates Conquest route - the story is ass, which likely wasn’t helped by the localization team in any way, but the gameplay’s great and the maps actually become challenging enough you can’t just steamroll them with the MC.
Fate's was pretty infamous for its localization fuckery too, I've even heard some people cite Fates JP and Fates EN might as well be different stories due to how they handle the script. Even corncob is apparently better as Kamui in Fates by not being quite as much of a dumb retard who spouts platitudes while the story ensures they win, but more like a very tender sweet heart who's forced into a rough spot by the plot.

It still isn't good, but I've heard a few times then people like Corrin's Japanese self in Kamui far more then the EN version who's probably the most hated avatar save for the 5 people who know Kris' character outside of Japan.
 
That's a whole 'gay' thing in and of itself.

Reasons Ike isn't Gay:
  • He doesn't really show romantic interest in...anyone in particular.
  • Priam exists, and had to come from somewhere.
Reasons Ike is Gay:
  • He only has special endings with men
  • Priam is only stated to be descended from Ike, which could just as easily mean he's from Mist's lineage and not Ike's directly.
My two cents is that Ike is a fucking Shonen Jump meathead who isn't interested in anything that doesn't involve battle.

I don't dislike the idea of Ike being into guys and Priam being a descendant of Mist and Boyd (the last one can be seen as a nice throw-back to the Archanea lore, where Anri the Hero's brother continued his bloodline). I still remember how hypocritical fans and especially fangirls were about all of this, though: to them Ike was GAY GAY GAY, you weren't allowed to think otherwise and if you didn't ship him with Soren (and only Soren, Ranulf WHO?) you were an homophobe even if you were LGBT+ yourself. . . but lmfao, according to them Heather was NOT a lesbian at all, she just needs a good dicking to solve her issues with men! :story:
 
I had a weird thought. You can solve a lot of the problems with Radiant Dawn's writing if you just make Micaiah racist. The blood pact only exists to motivate Micaiah to fight Ike's army which you don't need if she's already predisposed toward fighting the Laguz Alliance on principle. Micaiah wouldn't be nearly as much of a Mary Sue if she were prone to randomly bursting out into Uncle Ruckus style rants on animal people. You don't even need to go out of your way to justify it, she's branded, she's got plenty of reason to hate Laguz.
 
Come to think of it I feel like Alear is a bit on the weaker side compared to Corrin,Robin and Byleth.

Granted I haven't finished the game yet.
In combat? Yes, Alear's combat is kind of bad because they're all speed and middling strength in a game that punishes average physical units due to high defenses.

In execution across the overall game? More arguable. Emblem Byleth +3 every stat 4 unit dancing is insanely broken and Dragon Vain on Corn Emblem is also very helpful and only Alear can use these tools to their fullest due to Dragon typing. I'd say Alear is one of the best units once Byleth comes in and their personal is also pretty helpful for ensuring kills as enemy bulk tends to make it hard to two hit enemies.

I had a weird thought. You can solve a lot of the problems with Radiant Dawn's writing if you just make Micaiah racist. The blood pact only exists to motivate Micaiah to fight Ike's army which you don't need if she's already predisposed toward fighting the Laguz Alliance on principle. Micaiah wouldn't be nearly as much of a Mary Sue if she were prone to randomly bursting out into Uncle Ruckus style rants on animal people. You don't even need to go out of your way to justify it, she's branded, she's got plenty of reason to hate Laguz.
My issue is I don't think Sothe would really want to stay around for that as he like all of PoR Ike's army likes the laguz on some level and will fight and die for them. Sothe might not actually do much in actual player run practice, but Sothe in the story had Laguz war comrades so I'd presume he actually likes them and doesn't want to fight a race filled war. Tormod would probably actually kick her ass for that too given how much of a literal hot head he is. I think Miccy could use a little bit of outright resentment, ala Stefan for example, but I don't know if making her a full blown racist is the right call for the sake of conflict. Maybe if you reorganized the story some more you could.

I think all you need to do with part 3 is just to just emphasize and more smartly use the fact that Pelleas is in actuality a pretty weak willed and easily manipulated man and abuse that with more smart political games then magic voodoo paper. This could emphasize that Micaiah is loyal to a fault, or perhaps she wants to shoulder her burden off to him and thus tries to support him so she can do her own thing. She's like a desperate person trying to make things work while Sothe is more pragmatic and contrasts her. She'd be like an opposite for Ike, where Ike pretty blatantly talks back to people when pushed Micaiah doesn't and is more carried by her will and her special abilities, This all fits with her whole plot point of realizing she's a symbol for the people and can't falter as she stresses out over it. It is a little melodramatic, but I think it works and requires less effort with what is already here.

That's far easier and it fits the angle they try to go with him, and would make his optional (though I'd just make it a given thing in this rewrite) turn around more impactful because he does have some pretty nice dialogue if you keep him alive but his whole plot is so contrived because magic voodoo paper is just silly. I feel for the guy on some level, but he's also pretty much a wuss for most the game and I think the story could have abused that with more shrewd politics.
 
I had a weird thought. You can solve a lot of the problems with Radiant Dawn's writing if you just make Micaiah racist. The blood pact only exists to motivate Micaiah to fight Ike's army which you don't need if she's already predisposed toward fighting the Laguz Alliance on principle. Micaiah wouldn't be nearly as much of a Mary Sue if she were prone to randomly bursting out into Uncle Ruckus style rants on animal people. You don't even need to go out of your way to justify it, she's branded, she's got plenty of reason to hate Laguz.
Funny enough i had a similar idea with Ike, but going on the opposite direction: hopping on the Laguz barbed cock so hard he starts encouraging the Beorc genocide Caineghis' shitty nephew and in part Tibarn were pushing for, basically doing a 180° on his character development from the first game, just for him to realize his fuck up in part 4, and then when he fucks off from the continent in the ending it would be out of shame for betraying his principles in anger for what the senators where doing to the Laguz. No matter what way you go to, RD's biggest flaw was that it tried to do a clash of 2 sympathetic parties, but at the same time it tried to have both of them in the moral high ground, with the only real pushback being Micaiah forced to fight because of the blood pact asspull.
 
Funny enough i had a similar idea with Ike, but going on the opposite direction: hopping on the Laguz barbed cock so hard he starts encouraging the Beorc genocide Caineghis' shitty nephew and in part Tibarn were pushing for, basically doing a 180° on his character development from the first game, just for him to realize his fuck up in part 4, and then when he fucks off from the continent in the ending it would be out of shame for betraying his principles in anger for what the senators where doing to the Laguz. No matter what way you go to, RD's biggest flaw was that it tried to do a clash of 2 sympathetic parties, but at the same time it tried to have both of them in the moral high ground, with the only real pushback being Micaiah forced to fight because of the blood pact asspull.
Yeah, RD kinda undoes whatever it was going for the second it reintroduces Ike. Bringing him back at all feels like it sabotaged Micaiah, because who is the player more likely to sympathize with? The hero of the last game who is fighting for the Laguz, who the story makes clear have every right to fight back against the corrupt Begnion senate--or the newbie who is forced to fight a bigot war for some country she doesn't even like because her king got fucked over by magic bullshit paper?

The story feels like it got so bored of writing Micaiah that by Part 4 she has almost nothing to do, and spends at least a quarter of the game's closing as Yune instead so she can give Ike exposition. Ike gets all the credit and glory as the Radiant Hero, because Micaiah didn't do jack shit.

Sidenote: The blood pact is so contrived. How does it work? Does it specifically target the country of Daein? What if 'Daien' didn't exist anymore? If Pelleas decreed that the nation would be called 'Poopenfarden' from henceforth, would the blood pact be neutralized because there is no 'Daein' it can force to fight for them any longer?
 
Sidenote: The blood pact is so contrived. How does it work? Does it specifically target the country of Daein? What if 'Daien' didn't exist anymore? If Pelleas decreed that the nation would be called 'Poopenfarden' from henceforth, would the blood pact be neutralized because there is no 'Daein' it can force to fight for them any longer?
Considering Naesala can overwrite the blood pact's voodoo because he manages to work for the one who is in authority over the one who he signed it with in the first place, and this works so good that he can just murder his way through the problem, the blood pact just knows okay? It is all knowing. Poopenfarden would just get a plague anyway, locus will swarn upon the land, and the Goddess herself will drop an atomic missile from the sky and blow up the country.

Oh wait this isn't Three Houses, so that last one can't happen.
 
Yeah, RD kinda undoes whatever it was going for the second it reintroduces Ike. Bringing him back at all feels like it sabotaged Micaiah, because who is the player more likely to sympathize with? The hero of the last game who is fighting for the Laguz, who the story makes clear have every right to fight back against the corrupt Begnion senate--or the newbie who is forced to fight a bigot war for some country she doesn't even like because her king got fucked over by magic bullshit paper?

The story feels like it got so bored of writing Micaiah that by Part 4 she has almost nothing to do, and spends at least a quarter of the game's closing as Yune instead so she can give Ike exposition. Ike gets all the credit and glory as the Radiant Hero, because Micaiah didn't do jack shit.

Sidenote: The blood pact is so contrived. How does it work? Does it specifically target the country of Daein? What if 'Daien' didn't exist anymore? If Pelleas decreed that the nation would be called 'Poopenfarden' from henceforth, would the blood pact be neutralized because there is no 'Daein' it can force to fight for them any longer?
That's kind of why I like the idea of making Micaiah a raving racist, at least to start. She doesn't have a character arc at all, and part 3 would be so much better if the conflict was driven by the characters rather than contrived circumstances. The Blood Pact turns what should have been THE highlight of the story into a sequence that's just frustrating to read. Even the Greil Mercenaries bring it up when they had them cornered Ike essentially tells her "Bitch, do you want to fucking die? I can tell you're not a terrible person, why are you even wrapped up in this!" If the messaging were more along the line of "people who are fundamentally good can have big personality flaws", it would go a long way toward making the conflict more interesting.
 
That's kind of why I like the idea of making Micaiah a raving racist, at least to start. She doesn't have a character arc at all, and part 3 would be so much better if the conflict was driven by the characters rather than contrived circumstances. The Blood Pact turns what should have been THE highlight of the story into a sequence that's just frustrating to read. Even the Greil Mercenaries bring it up when they had them cornered Ike essentially tells her "Bitch, do you want to fucking die? I can tell you're not a terrible person, why are you even wrapped up in this!" If the messaging were more along the line of "people who are fundamentally good can have big personality flaws", it would go a long way toward making the conflict more interesting.
The Dawn Brigade would just need to be all new characters at that point, because Zihark would never work with a racist like that or Jill even considering their arcs are about fighting against those kinds of people considering where they came from. Zihark lost his furry girlfriend to racism, he wouldn't deal with someone wanting to burn all the furries. Jill killed her own dad to stand up for what she thought was right and a huge part of her PoR development is overcoming her hatred of the laguz.

Mind you that might be better or worse depending on your stance on the old characters existing in that section, but you'd have to rework a good amount of the Micaiah section to accommodate this change. Micaiah does have implications to hate Ike from the start of the game as she pretty much blames him for why Daein is a shitshow as she fights with Sothe about it early on, they could lean into some of that with magic voodoo and make the story more about Sothe + old cast being put into a compromising position while Micaiah is willing to ride the wave without really trying to worm her way out of her situation solely to take Ike down.
 
The Dawn Brigade would just need to be all new characters at that point, because Zihark would never work with a racist like that or Jill even considering their arcs are about fighting against those kinds of people considering where they came from. Zihark lost his furry girlfriend to racism, he wouldn't deal with someone wanting to burn all the furries. Jill killed her own dad to stand up for what she thought was right and a huge part of her PoR development is overcoming her hatred of the laguz.

Mind you that might be better or worse depending on your stance on the old characters existing in that section, but you'd have to rework a good amount of the Micaiah section to accommodate this change. Micaiah does have implications to hate Ike from the start of the game as she pretty much blames him for why Daein is a shitshow as she fights with Sothe about it early on, they could lean into some of that with magic voodoo and make the story more about Sothe + old cast being put into a compromising position while Micaiah is willing to ride the wave without really trying to worm her way out of her situation solely to take Ike down.
The way I see it being played out is that Sothe sticks around her because she's just the most important person in his life. He knows better than anybody that she's not completely irredeemable. And it's the first desert chapter 1-4 that kind of begins the change in character; you can set it up so that Volug and Nailah play a part in the actual fighting. Being rescued by a bunch of half breeds from a bunch of half breeds is bound to confuse her, and sets her up to have a life altering change of heart later. You can put her in a state where she begrudgingly admits that some Laguz are worthwhile. It creates a reasonable excuse as to why Zihark and the rest would be willing to put up with her in order to see their homeland restored.

Add to that the fact that, from all outside appearances, the Laguz Alliance pretty much attacks Begnion pre-emptively, and all you really have to do to get her into the fight is have the Begnion senators play it off as if they're just defending themselves from a bunch of rabid animals and you can easily have her as well as the rest of Daein join in the fight wholeheartedly without completely breaking what has already been established in the story. Plus, you can have an even better story justification as to why Zihark and Jill would want to defect to the Greil Mercenaries.
 
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