Video Games Reflecting on Waifu Emblem's Good and Bad for Lulz (FE 13 & 14 discussion)

[Silver Wolf]

With Shadows of Valentia coming out and hopefully making some good changes compared to the series' savior and the savior's deformed child (Awakening and Fates) I want to reflect upon what many classic fans and elitist fans like to call the Waifu Emblem games. Honestly, I don't hate Awakening or Fates, they were my first FE games, and I threw away $200 to get the Tellius games, but I'm off topic now.

I want to talk about these two games in particular: Awakening and Fates. Fates and Awakening were both aimed to be VERY ambitious titles. Awakening saved the series from death and Fates (in my opinion) tried too hard to follow in Awakening's footsteps. What were some of the good and bad about the Waifu Emblem games?

 

[Count Gensokyo]

Awakening and Fates were my first ones.
They were both great games.
Fates did nothing wrong.
Fight me, elitists.

 

[Collidias Rex]

I considered trying a Waifu Emblem game.

Then my GM started a weekly tabletop based on Fire Emblem.

Now I don't want to try a Waifu emblem game. Being crit killed by a loaf of bread tends to sour one's opinion toward the responsible combat system.

 

[IG42]

I considered trying a Waifu Emblem game.

Then my GM started a weekly tabletop based on Fire Emblem.

Now I don't want to try a Waifu emblem game. Being crit killed by a loaf of bread tends to sour one's opinion toward the responsible combat system.

Well they certainly captured the spirit of the combat system.


Also Fates shoehorned the child characters in way too hard.

 

[Silver Wolf]

Fates kind of dug its own grave and tried to drag Awakening with it. The Fates story was worse than Awakening's. Azura explains everything, Corrin being a little pussycat, or how about #blametakumi? The shoehorn of the children was lazy and just bad. Let's send our kids to a deep realm where we can't keep a close eye on them and they'll age several years in a few days! I don't even see how they even see their parents as their parents.

Conquest Corrin: "I will fight a war without killing ANYONE." or saying this to Takumi: "Corrin's soldiers do not wish to harm those who do not wish to harm them..."

It would have been so much better if Takumi didn't get infected by Anankos's magic and just committed suicide by jumping off.

Fates just had a really crappy story. It did some very interesting things and some better things.

Fates getting rid of weapon durability was really cool initially, but they butchered it with the punishment you would receive from using some of them. I mean Skill & Strength -2 for using a silver weapon? Ouch. I never used Silver Weapons because of that. Weapons were never broken to begin with. I was happy to have weapon durability out because it sucked for me in Awakening when I made an awesome personal weapon for someone and it breaks. Initially the weapon forge in fates was GREAT until you looked at all the grinding you need to do. At least Fates did most of their characters better than awakening ever would.

 

[Silver Wolf]

Awakening and Fates were my first ones.
They were both great games.
Fates did nothing wrong.
Fight me, elitists.

Yeah, Fates did nothing wrong other than make a bad story, shoehorn child units in horribly, and make an annoying Protagonist.

I'm sorry, the stuff Corrin does makes me cringe more than watching Watamote. I loved Robin as a character, but Corrin was just bad.

 

[Flintpokemaster718]

Awakening was my first one, I don't have Fates and the mobile game sucks. What did I miss?

 

[Flintpokemaster718]

I considered trying a Waifu Emblem game.

Then my GM started a weekly tabletop based on Fire Emblem.

Now I don't want to try a Waifu emblem game. Being crit killed by a loaf of bread tends to sour one's opinion toward the responsible combat system.

How many breads have you been critted by in your life?

 

[Khadame]

FE7 was my first one, but I prefer the support system in FE:A/if so I just got those.

Fates' story is okay-garbage. Never bothered with Birthright (becausefuckweebs). Conquest's level design sorta cancelled the story out, and seeing all those little cutscenes was my favourite. Same with Revelations, except the level design sucks a bit more. Valla was the most garbage idea, and Azura looks good and does nothing. I can't say I regret spending ~65 bucks on it, though - it has kept me entertained for a good 100 hours so far and I'm not even fully through Rev.

Indisputably, Leo, Takumi and Charlotte are the best waifus. Maybe I just have shit taste.

Can't comment on FE:A. I would like to get the game, but blowing another 45 for a 4 or so year old game is a bit too much. Nintendo pls discount.

 

[Count Gensokyo]

Fates did nothing wrong.

Shoehorned or not, I enjoyed some of the child characters, and I still liked the idea of re-including that system.

Multiple major character deaths happened on both sides of the story, so it's not all sunshine and rainbows.

Birthright isn't even that "weeby." They axed honorifics and went for the first-name-goes-first route.

I didn't consider much of anything to be cringy through my playthrough of Birthright. I've nearly finished Conquest and haven't started Revelation.

The gameplay was stellar in both titles, and Fates added a lot of cool new features. It still had a great soundtrack, too.

It's generally tough to make me cynical about something, and if I liked the game, I still like the game.

 

[Khadame]

Birthright isn't even that "weeby." They axed honorifics and went for the first-name-goes-first route.

Well, but it's based off japanese culture. Honestly, that isn't my main problem with it; the problem is that the Birthright/Hoshido bias is so strong in this game it almost ruins it. Hoshidos are portrayed as innocent soldiers and Conquest!Corrin goes out of her way to spare their lives, and portrays them as saints. I've heard about Birthright that this way of thinking is apparently not present in the game at all, and it pisses me off to no end. Garon is almost comedy gold because he's so evil. It's so stupid. It's like glorious Nippon vs. evil Europe.

 

[Pyosimros]

 

[Pyosimros]

(FE Fates can also be easily exploitable with the My Castle system though. My Ophelia, Effie, and Soleil are completely broken. @Kazuko is a witness to Effie's undamageable ways >.>)

 

[Truthblade]

Fates did nothing wrong.

Shoehorned or not, I enjoyed some of the child characters.

Multiple major character deaths happened on both sides of the story, so it's not all sunshine and rainbows.

The gameplay was stellar in both titles, and Fates added a lot of cool new features. It still had a great soundtrack, too.

I mostly agree.

I have not played either "waifu" games, though i am quite familiar with Fates via playthroughs (never cared for Awakening that much however). Even if they were shoe horned, some of my top favorite characters are children (Shiro and Shigure) and even though the story definately had some problems, the gameplay looks very fun from what i have seen. (Though honestly, FE stories were never rhe best, except maybe Tellius).

QUOTE="Pyosimros, post: 7594802, member: 16263"][/QUOTE]

I wanted to bring that up too. XD

 

[Count Gensokyo]

Garon is almost comedy gold because he's so evil. It's so stupid. It's like glorious Nippon vs. evil Europe.

Are pure-evil villains not allowed anymore now? I thought Garon was intimidating for the role he played in the story (not to mention his fight in Birthright—wiped out about 60% of my team with how overwhelming and hopeless the final chapter seemed to be. The swarms high-level enemies forced me to make a reckless charge against Dragon Garon, and I barely made it out alive). While sometimes I wished I knew why Garon was being a horrible father and basically Hitler, I still thought he had good villainy about him. Besides, like mentioned before, Fire Emblem games don't usually have ground-breaking stories. I still really like the story of both ""waifu emblem"" games.

 

[Khadame]

Are pure-evil villains not allowed anymore now? I thought Garon was intimidating for the role he played in the story (not to mention his fight in Birthright—wiped out about 60% of my team with how overwhelming and hopeless the final chapter seemed to be. The swarms high-level enemies forced me to make a reckless charge against Dragon Garon, and I barely made it out alive). While sometimes I wished I knew why Garon was being a horrible father and basically Hitler, I still thought he had good villainy about him. Besides, like mentioned before, Fire Emblem games don't usually have ground-breaking stories. I still really like the story of both ""waifu emblem"" games.

Well, he was a good father before. The Nohr siblings constantly comment on how he has changed, etc, so he couldn't have been bad before. In Conquest, spoiler, it turns out he's a slime monster that's been possessed by the bigger bad. But it doesn't tell you why or how, and it feels like a cheap excuse for murdering him. The reason for the bigger bad is even more forced. It doesn't mean I didn't enjoy looking through the story, but there were so many eyeroll moments my eyeballs almost imploded. But yeah, FE's stories aren't usually particulary outstanding, but FE:if was below their usual average sometimes.

 

[Silver Wolf]

So? The peop

Well, but it's based off japanese culture.

Well the people who make Fire Emblem are Japanese people living in Japan.

 

[Khadame]

Well the people who make Fire Emblem are Japanese people living in Japan.

The localization team could've at least tried to fix this issue a bit. Because it's very annoying to get "HOSHIDO BEST" constantly shoved in your face. It's not like they would feel guilty about changing content
cough saizo x beruka c support cough

 

[Truthblade]

The localization team could've at least tried to fix this issue a bit. Because it's very annoying to get "HOSHIDO BEST" constantly shoved in your face. It's not like they would feel guilty about changing content
cough saizo x beruka c support cough

I honestly think that's what they were trying to do by making Hoshido more hostile towards Nohr.

 

[Khadame]

I honestly think that's what they were trying to do by making Hoshido more hostile towards Nohr.

And Nohr not hostile towards Hoshido. At least not with Corrin, who basically has 70% of the important dialogue in the game. Granted, it's hard to fix something that is already there, but a bit more Nohr appreciation wouldn't hurt. Especially when there is a skill called Nohrian Scum, but no Hoshidan scum :[

 

[IG42]

When playing I compared Kana to Morgan (both female in this case) and found I like the latter much better.

Kana has all the depth of the four year old she acts like, making her much less interesting and making pairing her off and actually using her in a fight awkward, dragon or not.

Morgan meanwhile of course has her amnesia issues but also while looking up to the avatar is trying to get one over on them and has her amusing manipulative tendencies in her supports, sending Inigo and Owain on their respective harebrained tasks was hilarious. With Morgan I feel less like I'm telling a child to stop reading the Hungry Caterpillar and go stab something and more giving a protege practical asskicking experience.

 

[SirBlazeALot]

Oooo fire emblem talk, I'm in

I've been a fan of fire emblem for like over a decade now, which is pretty insane now that I think about it. So I would call myself a long time fan (although the only Japanese title I've played is Binding Blade so I'm sure plenty of people have played more FE than I have) but I love the new titles too.

First and foremost both really improved on the Support System and made it easier to grow attached to characters for who they are and not just what they can do for you in battle. And I think that's what makes these games more accessible than the GBA games and the Tellius games because they really only focused on a few select characters in the main plot and didn't really provide enough incentive to unlock the supports of the minor characters. And I do think that the conversations make up for the lackluster stories that's pretty prevalent in all FE Games.

Both are well executed but there are some corners that were cut in both that were kind of unforgivable to me.

Since I was just talking about Support Conversations, there are some big fuck ups in both Awakening and Fates. You know how certain characters can only support with the my unit character? Wtf is up with that? It makes me way less compelled to use those characters and train them because they'll only ever be hanging out by the My Unit, and you can replace them with just about anybody because EVERYONE can support with the My Unit. Personally I just feel like those characters don't even need to exist, they're set up just to end up on the bench. I guess if you lost some characters along the way they can be decent substitutes. I guess all FE games do that, especially with pre-promoted units. But still man. This is especially stupid in Fates because it should have been fixed after Awakening, but there's also a huge glaring oversight caused by this fuckery. If you're playing a male Corrin, you've gotta marry either Reina, Scarlet, Flora or Niles if you wanna unlock all the kids. There aren't enough women to go around. And you can't play it off as a mechanic that makes you choose which kids to unlock carefully, because female avatars don't have that problem and again if you marry the aforementioned characters you won't have that problem. It's just hilarious cause there are literally 3 other women that could have solved this problem. At the very least a Scarlet and Ryoma talk would've been nice? And also, wtf is up with Camilla being the only royal sibling that can't have a support with Azura? In my headcanon I imagine it's because Camilla's jelly of the connection between Azura and Corrin and she just shoots a death glare at her whenever she sees her. But logically it's just like... fucking why?

In Awakening I was reeeeally pissed that the DLC characters of the old games didn't get their own special game models. I understand not giving every god damn FE character ever a custom model, but the characters that got redesigned (IN REALLY COOL WAYS) like Roy and Lyn definitely should have had their own game model like Marth did. It was really disappointing to just have them use the my unit models for those characters. But bonus points for Lyn remembering you when you talk to her after her DLC chapter, that shit almost made me cry.

I also hate how Awakening (and Tellius minus Micaiah) doesn't have Light magic. I'm a GBA fan primarily so I grew up with the magic weapon triangle being just as much of a crucial mechanic as the regular weapon triangle.

Awakening is super easy, even on the harder modes. You can make it not easy by not grinding infinitely, but then other players on SpotPass are gonna own you and that's not cool ya know?
But Fates, I love Fates in terms of difficulty omg wow. Idk where more pig headed FE elitists get off saying Fates is easy. Yeah Birthright is easy with infinite grinding but even then in the late game I had some trouble keeping my dudes alive. Idgaf what anyone says though, Conquest is not easy at fucking all. Conquest has incredibly clever level design. If you're an FE fan who likes FE for the difficulty I don't see how you could be disappointed by Conquest.

Let's see what else. Oh yeah the children mechanic is totally shoehorned into Fates. It really is and there's a super terrible reason for it given in game but I think the realistic reasons for it allow me to forgive the stupid canon logic. For one, Awakening obviously brought a lot more fans into the fold and if the developers didn't put Children into the game, those new fans (the very same new fans that saved the series) would feel like content was taken away, and they obviously want people to keep buying these games. But personally, I can forgive it because those extra 13 or 14 chapters (DOUBLE IN REVELATIONS) to unlock the kids are fucking fun and pretty hard too.

The child mechanic as a whole though... Idk I'm just not big on using child characters in the main campaign chapters. If I were to try to articulate why, I think it's because in both games I got used to playing the parents long before the children were introduced, so I don't want to replace them with new characters of the same class even if they do tend to be better units. Plus, their ability to only support with each other and their parents makes pair matching more difficult. So overall, I could live without the kids, it made more sense in Awakening, it makes fuckall sense in Fates. Jesus Christ build a fucking daycare in your magic interdimensional castle for fuck's sake. But I can't complain about being given more content for my money. I will however complain about Tharja, Cordelia, and Gaius being reincarnated, get that shit outta here.

Speaking of money though, Fates is worth it. It's legit three full 3DS games for the price of two. In a day and age where developers are hacking up their games to sell DLC I think Fates sets a pretty good standard. It has more than earned the 80 or so dollars I ended up paying for all three pathways.

The stories in FE have never been great. "There's a big ancient evil, you need a magic sword to beat it, you meet a bunch of cool dudes along the way and you'll ditch your pre-promoted knight character you get in the first chapter, fight a bunch of dudes, boat level, fight more dudes, lava level, end game chapter split into two chapters, the final boss is most likely a big scary dragon, roll credits." It's whatever, you know, idrc cause I like the gameplay and it's not like the narrative is complete trash. It's just a classic King Arthur kinda deal every time, no big deal. And while Awakening fits that mold to a T, Fates reeeeeally shook it up, and I personally think it has the best FE story ever. I've had some pretty emotional reactions to some of the shit that goes down, no spoilers, but none of the other games have made me feel that hard for its characters. Is that to say that Fates is like Moby Dick levels of literary prowess? Hell no. But it does more than a good job of making the player experience the confliction that Corrin is.

I also love the two distinct cultures that Fates brings to the table. They even get their own unique classes, we've never seen shit like that before. I think that was badass. Idk what all this "lol weeby Hoshido" talk is about? I guess anything based off Japan is just "weeb" now lol. I just don't get that at all. Nor did I think that the Hoshidans were necessarily portrayed as the 100% good guys. They obviously were in Birthright, but Conquest really made me see them in a different light. Again, no spoilz, but some of the things the Hoshidan characters do and say in the Conquest route really shows that they're pretty big douchebags too. And in both paths Corrin refuses to kill enemy soldiers.

Speaking of Corrin, lets talk about My Units and then I'll end this spazzy text wall. I don't like Corrin or Robin. I think they're both pretty shit, and you know why? They're supposed to be MY avatar, but they don't act like me. They don't make decisions I would make. And I find them both to be hella bland in most instances. Both games have this problem where like, the player gets a self insert, but not really, they just get to name this super bland character who's a big part of the story. Their personalities aren't something I get to decide, and yet they're written to be as vaguely defined as possible so the player can mentally impart their own traits upon them. I get the logic, but I just feel like more dialogue where the player has control over what the My Unit says would be fucking awesome, ESPECIALLY in Support Conversations. Or when you're making a character you can choose a personality type to affect the dialogue. I love games where you can create your own character, I just don't think FE has executed it properly yet. If you're gonna give me a character and let me name him after myself, either let me do some of the talking or just miss me with that shit and give me a canon character with more personality.

I gotta say though, Fates > Awakening and I'll go on record and say it's the best FE I've ever played personally. It's the best as a whole for its ambition and its got more hits than misses in my opinion. Conquest is the hardest I've played, but Binding Blade is a close second. Binding Blade is just... fucking insane in terms of difficulty. I think I gotta give it to Conquest though. But my favorite will always and forever be FE7 because it was my first. And I had a fat crush on Lyn, so I guess FE has never not been "Waifu Emblem" for me.

 

[Khadame]

And I had a fat crush on Lyn, so I guess FE has never not been "Waifu Emblem" for me.

Actually, Hector was best girl. Duh.

Nor did I think that the Hoshidans were necessarily portrayed as the 100% good guys. They obviously were in Birthright, but Conquest really made me see them in a different light. Again, no spoilz, but some of the things the Hoshidan characters do and say in the Conquest route really shows that they're pretty big douchebags too.

Sakura was nice to you the entire game and they guilted you as much as possible for defeating her. So was Hinoka. Takumi is always a douchebag, and his reaction is understandable. Ryoma died a honourable death. Even in Corrin/Azura B-Support, the Hoshidan Assassin that tries to kill him says that 'he has a family' as his last words. Even in the route where I picked Conquest, Hoshido are the good guys. I wanted Nohr to be the good guys. But no, fuck Nohr, amirite?

 

[SirBlazeALot]

Actually, Hector was best girl. Duh.

This is what is known as an alternative fact.

Sakura was nice to you the entire game and they guilted you as much as possible for defeating her. So was Hinoka. Takumi is always a douchebag, and his reaction is understandable. Ryoma died a honourable death. Even in Corrin/Azura B-Support, the Hoshidan Assassin that tries to kill him says that 'he has a family' as his last words. Even in the route where I picked Conquest, Hoshido are the good guys. I wanted Nohr to be the good guys. But no, fuck Nohr, amirite?

Fair enough but on the opposite end, Elise is nice to you all throughout Birthright too, you totally should feel guilty for attacking Sakura and really any of the siblings in any path. But especially Conquest because guilt is one of Conquest's themes. Leo's super reasonable in Birthright even though you gotta fight him a bit, but ya gotta fight all the siblings a bit. And Takumi is a dick in both pathways. He's the only royal sibling who is and he's Hoshidan. And in Conquest, Ryoma pulled a super dick move when Elise was sick. No spoils but seriously, his actions in that Chapter showed he's no angel.

But aside from each side being portrayed as fairly even in terms of morality, I think the best thing about Conquest is that they aren't presented overtly as the heroes. That's what makes them interesting. Once you know and understand their motives, it's very easy to see them as the good guys. Having that overt contrast and the subtle hints that there's more under the surface is what makes Nohr great imo.

 

[Pretzel Heart]

S SirBlazeALot

I was stalking you to try and find the RP which has...disappeared off the face of the planet? D:
But I found a huge ass FE rant instead so let me -flexes knuckles-

In all honesty I'm one of those people on the Fates salt train so I was curious to hear your opinions on it since I know you love it and you're not coming from the 3DS gen. I think for me it came down to the fact that I overhyped the game (and let's be fair it's flipping ambitious as fkk so how can you not overhype?) so when I play it all I can think about is "hot damn if only they had done x, y, z" this game would blow minds.

In the end I'm divided because I like the godlike powers of the Waifu Emblem being able to ship characters (though I want even more godlike powers because you can't dangle hella lesbians and hella gays in front of me and expect them to suddenly turn straight for someone over pies no pies in Fates but still). At the same time I honestly think the quality of the Supports suffers from it. I understand that writing 700 flippity fracking Support conversations is crazy and hard and ridiculous buuuut if you can't write 700 interesting conversations chop it down to 300 and make them count? Awakening had this problem too but even they were more selective, while Fates it felt like they were being overly ambitious like with the whole game. For me seeing the same exact sequence of events in every Support makes the characters actually feel flatter, because I get the sneaking suspicion that there is literally nothing more to them than the 2D surface of -insert 1 trope here-. Awakening's Supports tended to have more surprises for me, while Fates even when I paired up people who couldn't be more different or should have some kind of tension or interest it rarely delivered. Like I feel as if some of these characters are dropped to have interesting sides to them, such as Ryoma's dark side and Xander's insecurities, which should be developed through Supports, but rarely is. Another thing that my friend pointed out is that the kids in Fates are all more or less copies / derivatives of their parents (or copies from another game!). Like Dwyer is lazy Jacob, Percy is smoll Arthur, Shigure is Rule 63 Azura. Especially because they grew up never knowing their child parents the kids shouldn't be influenced by them so strongly. In Awakening the kids were allowed to be their own people and felt more realized that way, like actual individuals that would result in growing up with this type of family, but Fates it's like...they got......lazy Also don't get me started on Heirs of Fate

Though I'm of the same mind where, like, I'm a first genner and the child characters always kind of squicked me out because seeing kids with kids just made me think of myself suddenly have a grown ass child and that was freaky. But in Awakening it was done in a really touching way and ngl I teared up at a good portion of those parent/child Supports. While in Fates....well, I think we can all agree alternate dimension daycare was the biggest bullsht to ever be bulled and led to all kinds of cringey plot holes and things I never wanted to ever think about like having a kid with a 10 year old in the middle of a god damn war....

And I know FE doesn't need a perfect story. I'm perfectly fine with the stories in all the other games I've played. Even though I love FE4/5 to pieces and the Game of Thrones level political shenanigans and the middle age level darkness those stories are at their heart simple, just executed really well. And Awakening's story was a hot god damn mess but I still love that game. In my heart I can't honestly understand why I'm so much more fond of Awakening than Fates wait JK I totally understand I just don't want to admit it to myself. But when you hire on a writer specifically to improve the story and then leave us with so much lackluster dialogue and gaping plot holes and unanswered questions and moments every level where I'm going "what the actual f***?" to my DS, it kind of ruins the immersive experience which is at the heart of an RPG. >,>>''

Also never forget how they advertised Fates as this big "what if" game where decisions mattered and bla bla...I think the only real "decisions" in the game is which one to buy and whether or not to let Kaze and Shura die which, spoiler alert, you shouldn't >,>. Again I'm divided because Awakening the choices didn't matter jack diddle which is kind of...strange, considering it is a game literally centered around the theme of ~destiny~ but there were some really hard ass choices you're faced with. Would have liked to see hard ass choices + follow through....maybe one day...

The Avatar thing doesn't bother me as much because I actually....like...Robin.....and I think both Robin and Corn have their flavors which makes them individuals. I would, however, much prefer, like you said, either dropping the pretense of self-insert when you don't really control the character in favor of sharpening those individual flavors or delving deeper into Visual Novel Emblem which a lot of old fans would spear me for but fkk I like Visual Novels and think they can be incorporated into RPGs quite excellently. So I'm cool with Robin, I think he had his own personality, and personally I'm not a huge projector to begin with so the distance didn't phase me, and they struck a good balance between Robin's story and Chrom's. Corn on the other hand....what gets my goose about Corn is how fkkn obsessed with him every single fkkn character in the game is for seemingly no reason. At his core I like that he's a stupid idealistic sunshine child raised in a dungeon but what would have sold it for me was actually seeing retribution for his dumb sunshine child actions so that he could actually grow as a character rather than passively angsting and becoming the Mofo Right Hand of Darkness (in Conquest at least). I think it would have upped the impact of the (honestly tragic) final scenes of the two unhappy games, like the final inevitable sacrifice of a long and hard struggle rather than just one easily avoided price. Retribution either as more scripted deaths or betrayals...idk. Just not, "Wow! Corn! You just killed my entire family, but you're so perfect let's wrestle in oil!" There were too many Cornsexuals not just with the Support limitations (which yeah wtf couldn't Reina Support with Yukimura or Orochi and why not Scarlet x Ryouma? It would have been so cool!!), but with characters who "hated" everyone else and existed only to please Corn. Though I think 90% of Fates characters had that exact same problem with not just Corn but all the other siblings because of the endless retainers which, unfortunately, had very little variation in their motivations / origins unless they were stealing from another game.

Also I hate what they did to magic in Fates and the shitty shit shit hit rates. I've had to restart more levels due to a character not hitting when they had over 80% accuracy than any man should ever have to....
However I am digging the loss of weapon fatigue and how they attempted to balance that out with buffs instead, though it certainly isn't perfect and I'm hoping?? the mechanic will continue to be defined in Valencia rather than just exp whatever the original had (though it definitely looks like they are building on the original and fkk I'm so excited holy sushi I--).

I will say that I'm one of maybe 2 people on this entire planet that prefers Conquest to Birthright (for more than purely gameplay). I understand why people hate it and think it's a hot mess, but at least it's interesting. I was happy to see them doing new stuff while Hoshido bored me half the time because they were just TOO GOOD staring at that game blinds me Hoshido is so light I'm also biased because I like the entire cast of Nohr better sorry Japan. Though I also think Hoshido had the better ending and I'll never forgive Azura for her dumbass stupid spoiler plan in Conquest I'll never forgive Azura for a lot of things but that's not important now.
Fate is also the most gorgeous game I've ever seen on the 3DS, the cutscene, overworld, and battle animations are all friggin amazing, and also it has a beautiful interface which I'm hoping carries into future games, especially with FE Console coming back. I also hella dig the music though I wish it had been a little more flavored between the games.

So I don't hate Fates and I had fun playing all three flipping games but it was a huge letdown for me in many respects. It baffles the mind that people can come in with Fates as their first FE and love it, but you know, if it gets us nice goods like Valencia I'm not complaining. Not at all.

Also

Corrin, you've gotta marry either Reina, Scarlet, Flora or Niles if you wanna unlock all the kids

Actually if you marry Niles you don't get ether Eponine or Kanna because gay units don't deserve kids. I hacked my game to up the power level on the Waifu Emblem and like, the gays = don't get kids mechanic is literally hardwired into the game wtf. I mean baby steps but it still annoyed me, especially with their ending I think it's implied they set up an orphanage Lucius style so like major missed opportunity there lmao.

I loved both Reina and Scarlet so I never noticed the imbalance but......that is kind of sad.

Holy shit this got so long.
I have a problem with fan boy flapping when it comes to FE.