I for the life of me cannot bring myself to continue playing the revelations path with how bad of a taste the Birthright slog left in my mouth. This whole game has left me confused and I cannot reasonably distinguish weather I like the whole of Fire Emblem Fates or not.
It most certainly isn't worth the $80+ one might pay for anything near a complete experience.
As I write this right now, I am deeply struggling to think of a single character from the hoshido side that I gravitated towards. Azama? mmmmmmmaybe Rinkah, who from both times I've tried her has had bad growths? I'm not counting kids, because not only do they feel super paper thin as far as their inclusion goes, but I feel like their attachment to ANY of the conflicts in the game are so far removed... they don't have any ventured interest in the war for countries they didn't even grow up in... speaking of which, a lot of the characters feel just like that too... either they're retainers, or only get support with Corrin and thus have their character growth outside of their brief spotlight in the campaign stunted.
even still, the whole "EVERYONE SUPPORTS WITH EVERYONE" mentality the game takes has the unfortunate side effect of making several supports retreads of the same stuff instead of two characters feeling memorable. there's a countless number of "Effie is Strong! but Effie is also hungry!" supports out there or "Look at how much of a hapless goof but an endless optimist Arthur is!" or retreads of Nyx's backstory with multiple characters. Older Fire Emblem games had a few support options, but the conversations ended up being something that would make both characters grow from what the campaign already established, and the Campaign usually does SOMETHING to establish these characters.
I literally know ****-all about Hana, Kagero, or Hinata. they're hoshidan retainers. one of them is Saizo and Kaze's sister. that's pretty much it. they just throw clumps of characters at you and do nothing to make me care about them in the first place. give me some hooks here! ties with a villan, a shady past, a love interest we haven't met yet, SOMETHING!
There's an example of this in Inigo, Serena, and Odin. these three characters would IMMEDIATLEY get lost in the shuffle if they weren't what they were, and also didn't have 2 DLC missions devoted to them to explain how the ****. In addition, they act extremely out of character when taken into context of Birthright especially.
The real kicker here is that they used to weave character motivations into the chapters in these games, and that's just... gone. Even Fire Emblem Awakening has a chapter where they introduce a character who's not important to the grand scheme of things, but you meet him, he has a motivation, and then he joins you because he's a sellsword who has a big heart although everyone seems to think he's a creeper because he saved a magical loli. that's all I really needed. and I didn't have to pay for 2 DLC chapters to get it or invest the time into a crap shoot of supports to get something that isn't surface level playing to an archetype.
or, hell, how about we go with Raven from Blazing Sword. when you draft him with help from his sister, you immediatley learn he's really only there to keep her safe and because doing so gives him his shot at revenge on house Ostia. bam. you have motivation other than "Eh, so and so is my charge, and I'm a gooooooooooooooofy archetype!"
I've gotten used to the fuckery with the new weapon triangle that doesn't make sense and all the piled on classes and such, and given this game found a far more grind-heavy resource management loop, I can't exactly complain about weapon durability being taken from the equation. I can, however, bitch plenty about how My Castle is BORKED and that it needs a major rework in most respects.
I bet you didn't know this, but the game actually rewards you for setting up your castle to be as easily defeated as possible. it's true! here's a word of advice on how (at least at the game's launch) you should ideally set your castle up to maximize it's popularity.
1) remove Lilith's little nesting tree. this is VERY important. also, never place the white dragon, black dragon, golem, or automations anywhere around your castle.
2.) put a building of some sort as close to your castle's entrances as possible. the more invaders that can move to that building's entrance as possible, the better.
3.) turn off "Auto-place defenders"
4.) when placing defenders, put a weak unit (probably an einherjar) with no items in it's inventory as your sole defender at the building you placed as close as possible to the entrance.
5.) name your castle "NoDrgn1Turn"
you now have a castle ideal for people to come and defeat and rate your castle to raise it's popularity and net you the very nice items to have inside the Rewards tab when people visit the castle! you should also go out and search out other 1 turn castles to help them out, as the common ettiquitte for those in the know is to then visit you in turn and give you precious circle jerk points that you only get to reward if you manage to successfully seige your opponent's castle, and naturally, if it's as effortless of a process as possible, you can go about rewarding folks quickly! of course, you could also make your castle a skill farm, but at this point I feel that most of the best skill farm castles are already established.
Getting multiple copies of a special weapon to craft it is MURDER. you either have to acquire these through RNG of talking to everyone around your castle after EVERY map, you can buy a few in limited quantity in your own shop, or my least favorite of all, you can do the even more RNG based Museum Mayhem map, which is not only RNG filled garbage, but it's also designed to be murderous and not be easily completed on a classic playthrough. I actually would not play Museum Mayhem unless you are playing on Phoenix Mode and don't give a single **** about getting ganked by the game deciding they're just going to flood one end of the map with tons of reinforcements because why not?
unlike Fire Emblem Awakening, I feel like Fire Emblem Fates hides a TON behind it's DLC. Taking full advantage of over-expensive systems like smithing almost requires you to do Ghostly Gold and then grind other castles for resources so you can buy a ton of Iron weapons and make them into something decent. Boo Camp is both an annoying map, but needed if you're really going to be taking advantage of trying to have a conquest file with the same sort of splendor that your birthright or Revelations files will have... Hidden Truths both hide important plot points and both a class item and generally very useful item behind them... Beach Brawl is silly and Harmless, but the other one is your only access to stat up items that isn't finite (no shop outside of my castle means there isn't even a secret shop to take advantage of in that regard.) Anna On the Run is... well, I'd actually say you'd really want it for Birthright where it's nice having an outlaw is really nice. and... everything else has a nice item with a map from an old fire emblem map attached, or it has an actual story and good use of the kid characters attached.
I'm on a dilusional rant and really hating on this game, but... you know what?
At the end of the day, it's still fire emblem. it's still difficult (Birthright for all the WRONG reasons), It's still got a charming localization in some regards, it fixed the majorly broken Pair up thing and my major issue with reclass, and the more modular experience probably makes this a better game for the less informed and invested customer who cherry picks the hunks they want and are find with what they find on the surface. It's fun, but I can't help but feel bitter from both money spent on the package and how much pf it I didn't like.
Topic: Fire Emblem Fates (Read 69825 times)
