#Tell me why Seteth only has supports with like four people

[kitkatopinions]

I’ve been playing Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, and just finished one of the routes, and all I’ve got to say is

[butwhatifidothis]

But...Byleth wasn't unemotive because they were a mercenary, they were unemotive because of the fact Sothis hadn't woken up. Like I said, you're injecting a negative viewpoint where there isn't any.

As much as people would LIKE for it to be Crimson Flower is NOT a villain route, as villain routes usually have you as the bad guy. The villainous actions are addressed. Instead you're potrayed about as much (if slightly less with the whole conquest thing) of a hero as the other routes, complete with the Black Eagles becoming the underdog and being short on troops, and Edelgard fighting directly on the frontlines. Sure we can call it the villain route since Edelgards the villain in all the other routes, but it isn't played as if it were one. There's no "Look at the horrible thing you've done!" or "Edelgard's empire crumbled and she was killed in a coup after TWSITD were defeated". or even a "Edelgard's lies get exposed' moment. She's just potrayed as the hero the entire time.

Also, Edelgard doesn't think Byleth is completely without emotion, she thinks byleth is DETATCHED. As in, not showing emotion often. She also agreess if Byleth says that Edelgard is also detached. That entire part of the conversation is brought on because Byleth says they are jealous. The entire thing of "Edelgard thinks Byleth has no emotions" is from a conversation in which Edelgard is GLAD that Byleth os showing emotion.

"I'll admit, I think of you as rather detached, so to hear that you have emotions such as jealousy is... something of a relief."

Also I forgot to ask...where is it STATED or SAID that Byleth WANTS to be a guiding hand for Fodlann? Like I'm not sure where that came from since it's not as if Byleth actively pursues a position of power, it's usually something they just sort of get given at the end of the other routes since Rhea either gives them said position, or is dead and Byleth ends up filling that role

Imma ask this: if being a mercenary was completely fine, if that had absolutely no negative impact whatsoever on Byleth... why didn't Sothis wake up earlier? Why did she only do so right before the lords - who give Byleth the chance to grow - meet with them? If they don't want to be a guiding hand in Fodlan, why don't they reject the leadership position given to them - especially on AM, when Rhea and/or Seteth could take over as archbishop?

It's because being a regular mercenary isn't good for them. It's because there's a consistent theme with Byleth that leadership as well as the Church are good things for their character, as well as for Fodlan - it's in the routes the Church is standing and Byleth earns a leadership position that Fodlan is at its most peaceful in the endings. It's not me being negative when it's this consistent within the game itself that being a leader and having a purpose beyond being a sword hand is what is best for Byleth.

To give the short answer to the "CF isn't a villain route" idea, here's this post I made detailing many of the ways CF is by far the most morally bankrupt route of the four of them, regardless of surface level framing. CF isn't a villain route in that "oh ho look at you, being evil!" It's the villain route because you are actively helping the villain get what she wants. You are the reason Fodlan falls into tyranny. It's your fault, as the player, that Fodlan is engulfed in war again when that isn't necessary in the other routes (where TWS are just taken care of with no need for a "long, arduous, bloody war"). It's because of you that the people of Fodlan must live under Edelgard's cruel leadership, being spied on by the secret police and having any rebellion they try to muster be put down in secret by Edelgard's evil butler.

You say CF isn't the villain route because Edelgard's villainous actions aren't addressed, but I'm sorry, I have to disagree with you with what qualifies as a villain route. You help plunge the continent into war by backing an imperialistic warmonger. You help spread outright lies about the Church. You keep up these lies even to your friends and let them believe the Church just nuked Arianrhod, without ever setting it straight with them. You work with a murder cult hellbent on killing as many people as they can. You comply with someone who is keeping an independent country (Brigid) under her thumb by keeping Petra as a hostage, which she herself refers to herself as on CF. You use Demonic Beasts as "war assets." You invade a neutral nation that's kept out of the war entirely. You help try to finish a genocide against the Nabateans - or, at best, work with someone who wants to finish it. You are the villain.

CF has you as the underdog despite it always being the one with the advantage in the beginning of the war phase because it is deliberately breaking from the worldbuilding of 3H, as said by the developers. Byleth is supposed to stand against Edelgard, not walk with her, hence the warping of the story when they do. It doesn't have to directly, explicitly say it's the villain route for it to be clear that you are not the good guy here.

Like, "you're portrayed about as much (if slightly less with the whole conquest thing) as much as a hero as the other routes-" no! Not slightly less! That is in large part what makes it villainous! You aren't fighting to defend yourself and to take down the one who plunged Fodlan into war - you are the conqueror! You are the one doing the plunging! For completely selfish gains, at that! There's no explicit "wow bitch you fucked up here" because the sign of you fucking up is the state your actions leave Fodlan in. It's Byleth losing the Crest Stone and going back to the beginning of their character arc. Edelgard, the villain, won - she got to have her happy ending on the graves of countless innocents lives she deemed less worthy than her ambitions, and it's all because of you. Edelgard getting exposed and her empire crumbling down is a good thing, which CF is not. You don't get to have Edelgard face the consequences of her actions like you do on the other routes where she dies, because she won. The bad guy won. You helped the bad guy win, so no, you aren't going to get the satisfaction of watching Edelgard fall - you play the other non-villain routes for that to happen. Why should there be? This is what you as the player wanted! You chose to side with Edelgard, even after being shown her involvement with nearly every bad thing that happens in WC, because you wanted her to win! You’ve reapt what you’ve sown!

And imma just ask... why is Edelgard relieved to hear Byleth has emotions such as jealousy? And why does she insist that Byleth is detached if you try to deny it? Why does Byleth have to directly tell Edelgard about them feeling emotions for her to know it - why doesn't she just know already? You never hear this sort of doubt come from Seteth, Claude, or Dimitri on SS, VW, and AM - hell, Claude will even outright say that Byleth has gotten far more expressive lately during tea time conversation! Why is Byleth detached in CF - why aren't they closer to the lord? Why is the lord doubting the connection between Byleth and others in their A support? Why is it only on CF that Byleth is ever called detached during post ts? Why is Byleth not showing emotion often? Enough to make Edelgard question whether they have emotions? 

It’s because Byleth is regressing on the progress they’ve made in being able to emote - they act in ways that are similar to how they act in the beginning of the game because CF is a negative influence on their character. Edelgard calling herself detached like Byleth is not a good thing - Edelgard’s detachment from other people is what lets her sacrifice innocent civilians for her goals. It’s what let’s her believe that her imperialistic dreams are worth the bloody path needed to make them come true. She is not connected to those around her, hence her being able to justify killing anyone to get what she wants, up to and including her Black Eagle classmates (Bernadetta on Gronder). Byleth being compared to someone like that is far from a positive thing, especially when all other routes have them have that connection with others and all other routes having a more positive, peaceful ending for Fodlan than CF. 

I will say though, it seems as though Byleth never seems to explicitly say that they want to be a guiding hand - that's a fuck up on my end and I apologize for that! But it's almost undeniable that that is the intended good path for them, versus CF where they don't have that happen. In the ending cutscenes of AM, SS, and VW, Byleth and the lord of that route (+ Rhea for SS) are bathed in the light (with Rhea being able to live on SS if she is close enough with Byleth), and Edelgard dies in the light. In CF, Byleth and the lord of the route are shrouded in darkness, with only the flames of destruction lighting them, and it's this setting that Rhea dies in. Edelgard can't survive in the light, and Rhea can't survive in the dark - and then the endings that correspond with these two scenarios match as well. The endings where Edelgard dies in the light and Byleth rises to become a guiding hand for Fodlan are the ones where peace is achieved, and the one where Rhea dies in the darkness (the one time Rhea always dies, unlike SS) is the one where Fodlan is fucked.

[luminisvii]

anyway i’ve been playing three houses on maddening lately because i hate myself, and i also hated looking at tier lists that put some characters who are actually quite bad for high difficulty up top, i made my own tier list of suggested feth characters for if you do a maddening run. this is really just so i can scream about what characters i think are best (spoiler alert: it’s lysithea)

so, here we go, tell’s three houses tier list!

disclaimer: based on personal experience, not all characters have been used on maddening, but i have played the game like... eight times. on my ninth run. so i have some pretty decent data on majority of the characters. 

tier is determined by how easy a character is to use, how much investment they require, and stat growths. crests+relics also influence this, since people who can use relics effectively are better. the game tells me not to judge based on crests, but come on! 

lords are not included, jeritza is also not because he’s CF post skip exclusive, but come on, we all know where he’d place anyway

the real tier list is this: if you’re playing on normal or hard, literally anyone is fine. follow your heart. invest in who you like. on maddening, you unfortunately need to be a little more discerning. and sometimes, you just get rng screwed, even with the best, so rip lmao 

TOP TIER (FOR COOL KIDS ONLY)

-lysithea: the coolest kid, doesn’t need a bed time. obvious bc her spell list and stats and access to relic are great. also look at her. shes bappy. she says so herself in her support with cyril (the only valid cyril support) all jokes aside, she can go down the basic mage line and mow down anyone who comes within her insane range. she also does well as a valkyrie, but with the speed penalty, i don’t recommend her staying in the class for long. just get uncanny blow! then hades will never miss! 

-felix: he may be a shadow the hedgehog motherfucker but he has one important thing that shadow doesnt: crest of fraldarius. i guess shadow has a gun, though. felix is just straightforward gameplay baby. you send him at something and it dies. go crest boy go!

-mercedes: im legally obligated to put mercie in here because of her personal, her crest, and fortify. although restore is also super neat! miss mercie is just plain reliable as a healer. easily goes through the priest line to gremory.

-balthus: extremely helpful early game, doesn’t fall off later either. his personal skill of str/def +6 when below half health means he can either straightforwardly tank or just punch shit so hard it doesn’t have a chance to strike back. also gets a relic, healing focus, and a major crest that allows him to heal, so he’s a one man army. he does one thing really well and that’s use his fists to liquefy his opponents. also gets rally strength if you care about that. my favorite strategy with him is to let the damn poison strike archers knock his health down and then just go to town, combined with vantage for REAL fun. forget war monk, this guy should just go to war master

-sylvain: this little slut will join you if you’ve got boobs so he’s real handy to have around. plus he’s got some great qualities: flexible, strong, free relic, and maybe kinda hot i guess. you could make him a paladin, but you should give him a giant lizard. he can basically become any of the master classes with ease, although i would not recommend putting him into magic classes that much unless you wanna do a wholly mage sylvie build. will still perform just fine as a dark mage even without dedicated magery. but seriously, dragon

-petra: you want crit??? you got crit!!! this little lady can not only crit like hell but also dodge tank really well. i had fun making her a falcoknight once and just watching her line it all up and tear it all down. petra is reliable and stronk and also horrible to fight against so just. recruit her, please

-constance: entirely here because of bolting. for the low price of her reason being A you can nuke enemies from across the map. while you could make her the canon class of dark flier, i for one think the warlock line is better, because that’s four uses of bolting and even more if her crest activates. she also has a similar statline to lysithea and hits like a truck with other spells, and with bolting can supply long range support, so really, what’s not to love? the rest of her spells are good too. i go for gremory over dark flier bc while the mobility is great, x4 bolting is even better. 

PRETTY GOOD TIER

-ingrid: extremely reliable, only down here instead of in the cool kids category bc her strength kinda sucks. i love ingrid though! she’s got a gambit gimmick and a crest+relic! ingrid with the chalice is super funny and i highly recommend it. i watched her fucking OWN every single siege tome user like that

-ignatz: some will say he sucks. some would argue his utility as a debuffer and rallybot. i will argue this ungodly crit. ignatz is a very luck man, blessed with great opportunities and a base crit value beyond any other. the little man will strike you down in the name of the goddess before you even know what’s going on. with a little help his strength will match the others and if you slap as much crit up on him as possible then it’ll never end. ignatz could be a one man army if he could crit more than one person at once. unfortunately he’s stuck to one divine judgment at a time. you can either use his 55% luck growth and archer level dex to gamble on a high crit rate, or you can stack his personal with another hit +20 to basically never miss anything. if you play deer, this man is a must.

-hilda: the usual, a crest, a relic, good times, a nice personal, but also like. she slaps. in general. pretty sick with an axe but works nicely as almost any physical class (i haven’t tried sword, though) because she naturally goes down the warrior line she can get some real fun times going. or just give her a lizard! women love swarms of lizards. she is a delicate little flower who will end a motherfucker

-ferdinand: fairly reliable as a cavalier class, and comes with some natural dodge tanky capability and access to seteth’s spear of assal and ochain shield which make him restore health like crazy and his personal will stay on. also a counter attack block is nice! he’s got some nice combat arts too. just a pretty straightforward cavalier. good times

-seteth: and while we’re on the crest of cichol, seteth is gonna make sure you never raise a finger against him again. you won’t survive. the only prepromote i use. he has good base stats, good growths, and he just does really well at what he does! he may come in a little late but he’s strong as fuck and is shredded. i tend to favor him over ferdie for the cichol linked items, but also i’m biased towards this anxiety dad, so take that as you will

-marianne: she tends to get left out of the healer talks because like most of the deer, she’s kind of weird. i will make an argument for her. what she lacks in utility she makes up for sheer raw power. while her crest won’t be of much use until very late and even then her sword prowess is not what you should be using her for, her spell list is all high power and she also comes with easy access to silence, which can nicely stall for some time against powerful mage enemies. she also gets a heal to herself if she’s standing next to an animal since all her friends are horses. still kinda slow as most healers are and not as much of a res tank, but a formidable edition nonetheless. blutgang is a good pinch hitter relic as well

-caspar: like most gauntlet users, caspar is good at one thing: punching. he is just really good at it. he’s perfectly geared towards being a war master. and he’ll perform that very well. he gets healing focus as one of his arts, so he can run off on his own if he wants. solidly reliable, will work at just. punching. go short king!

-yuri: the man’s utility is unrivaled. he’d go top tier if it weren’t for the fact that he’s got unreliable strength/magic growths. he could go either way as a physical attacker or a mage, but he naturally fits well in the assassin class along with trickster, and even dancer if you like (i’m trying that and honestly the male dancer animation is so sad. like. why can’t you put as much energy into it as the women.) but this man can go. hes fast. he’ll fuck you up

-hubert: while not as hard hitting as lysithea, the man still fucks things up with dark magic like she does. he lacks her double crests but he makes up for it by still smacking people’s nuts clean off and with the added bonus of range and debuffs dark magic provides. even better, you can make him a dark mage/bishop! however points off because they won’t let me stack fiendish blow. love u vampire man!!! unfortunately locked to CF so rip.

NICE TIER: 

-lorenz: i adore him but hes a little unreliable as things go. in house, hes the better paladin than leonie, and his personal grants him a nice damage bonus with a battalion. lorenz shines as a dark knight the most, he has a heavy hitting spell list and if you really want to, thyrsus is technically his relic even though everyone puts it on lysithea! i really like him and he can perform really well but unfortunately like most of the deer he is Weird and this can put him in strange places with his growths. tis a cruel world, being a lorenz stan!

-dorothea: also suffers from strange statline. for some reason they’re pushing sword with her. honestly, because she’s outperformed by other mages, even on black eagles i tend to put her into dancer and kinda forget about her. she has quite a bit in heavy hitting spells and her personal skill grants a very nice mini heal to people around her, but honestly, i usually favor lysithea over her. she functions best as pure support but can still pull through on the offense. sadly, the competition is really rough.

-ashe: does his job, and does it well. not as heavy of a hitter as some of his fellow archers, but still good nonetheless, and has access to deadeye for extra range (although don’t count on it on maddening). his personal means he can unlock things no matter what class he’s in, so you can focus on others! i personally think that, you guessed it, he should get a giant lizard.

-annette: she does well, sadly outperformed by other house mages. functions as a rallybot and gets crusher if you care about that. i missed crusher completely in my first lions run, whoops, and then in my second one i had constance so uh. sorry, annette! she’s so very sweet, but her spell list has her down here.

-leonie: im hiding before the leonie stans get me. sure, like sylvain, she has his ability and shared flexibility for any class, but unlike sylvain she lacks power, a crest, and a relic. i see people keep arguing that she’s a massive damage dealer, but i honestly never see it. she falls off damage wise really quick, even if she’s got more than enough speed to deal with it. she’s basically just a lamer sylvain or ingrid without the crest abilities that those two have to make them stronger. what? the game keeps TELLING me crest = bad but as far as i can tell, all the best characters have one! on maddening GD, she’ll be good at first, but she’ll drop.

-dedue: i would rank this man higher since i simply adore him but he’s SUPER difficult for me to use. his defense is unrivaled, this man will flinch at nothing, but his speed is almost always shit and he tends to get nuked from orbit by mages. i love him, i really do, but man he can be a lot to manage. he does really well early game but can’t keep up. which is a shame, i really like him :(

-flayn: she has quite a bit of capability with rescue and fortify, and her major crest means her healing is even more potent. however she’s a little slow, extremely fragile, joins low leveled after you’ve already invested in a different healer, and is not very strong. she IS a res tank, though, and learns seal magic, which adds to her res tanking capability. she also synergizes with the caduceus staff, so she can be very self sufficient, and hit from farther away! flayn does very well. the major penalty is a lackluster spell list and significant investment buy in.

-hapi: she’s… weird. i like hapi quite a bit but she’s got it worse than lorenz in terms of stat growth. her personal ability makes her an extreme aggro target for monsters and she can’t even avoid their attacks, and the bonus damage it grants unfortunately isn’t better than fellow DLC mage constance, who hits harder just out of sheer momentum. for having a healing crest, she doesn’t have a particularly interesting white magic line. her dark magic grants her utility similar to hubert, but she’s slower and can’t quite strike like he does. sadly miss hapi has to be down here. id like to put her higher but boy did she struggle

-raphael: well, he’ll do his job. he’s only beat by caspar since caspar has a little bit better tools at his disposal, but they’re basically the same character. raph will do very good at punching the living shit out of things. starts off better than caspar, but unfortunately in my current run i have balthus so raph had to get benched

YOU CAN DO BETTER TIER

-bernadetta: she’ll work alright, but only with lots of attention, and her personal doesn’t seem to make up the difference. for a sniper she seems to have far less hit than her rivals in ashe and ignatz, especially since ignatz makes him more reliable. her crest doesn’t actually grant her much since it has such a low trigger rate and by the time it does work she probably already can double. also she gains no levels between pre and post skip which is hilarious but like. HELLO? ive also been told she has the worst starting stats. personally, i only use her on BE runs. i know she’s a popular character and a lot of people rank her highly for persecution complex and the fact that she learns both encloser and deadeye, but deadeye is unreliable in maddening and she’s a lot of work to keep up with the others.

-cyril: he can become a killer, he honestly does really well, but he starts so far behind you need to invest a significant amount into him. i don’t recall him having a particularly stellar combat art line either, but if you choose to put in all the work of catching the kid up, he will do well. but it’s not worth it most of the time. i use him on church route runs bc it feels right. on other runs, you’ll already have someone who fits his niche--the guy becomes a wyvern rider, and the likes of sylvain can do much better in this line.

-linhardt: kind of a shittier flayn, without fortify or rescue. lackluster spell list for both black and white, and terrible growths. he’ll do fine if you play eagles, but if you’re going to import a healer, mercie or flayn is the better option. 

-anna: oh lord, anna is difficult. her offensive stats are horrendous. flayn hits harder than her. with her unique stat line, inability to get supports, weakness in authority, and all around just odd set up, anna is not a reliable character and you should use yuri instead. they’ve basically got the same crest.

DIDN’T USE SO NO OPINION TIER: 

-hanneman

-manuela (heard she’s not good anyway)

-alois

-gilbert

-catherine

-shamir

(yes there’s a trend to this which is past FEs have trained me away from using prepromotes!)

and there we go! im still biased towards GD but the characters who do best are the ones who have a clear class line to follow and a statline that matches it. 

[kendrixtermina]

Cindered shadows Reaction

tl;dr - Fodlan is a crapsack world and I want to strangle Rhea (or break Amyr on her again). Yuri is a very good contrast to the others and a cool addition to the ‘verse  for all that he is basically Joker XD

I took live notes while playing

One thing to take note of here is the house leader’s “canonical” classes (Fortress Knight/Warrior, Hero/Paladin, Assasin/Wyvern ride, though some of those assume the budding talents to be unlocked already) as well as just more of a look into what their dynamic is when they’re together - as such well-contrasting characters I always thought it was a shame that they didn’t interact more so I’m glad for this

 Edelgard is always somewhat standoffish/ closed off and generally the ‘logical’, least personable one, Claude is surface-level friends with both. Dimitri would like to think they are full-on BFF, calls Claude “my friend”, defends him etc. Claude’s friendship with Edelgard is very banter-driven, but there (the bit where she says “wow this trap could have been your idea” and hes flattered). Of course both of these carry over into their post-timeskip interactions especially when they part on good terms (Dimitri always does, and Edelgard easily can part with him on good terms, but Claude, though he doesn’t like the thought of them dying,  wouldn’t take risks on either them) - and of course it’s Claude who proposes the feast after the mock battle where they all eat together. Edelgard and Dimitri were never friendly (at least not during the academy), but at this point they’re civil. 

Claudes Dialogues are BRILLIANT like he really shines in this one (Edelgard probably gets the least exposure but all of this is set before the reveal, so she has to keep her cards close to her chest - Or maybe there just cant ever be enough Edelgard for me lets be honest)

First impression of the Ashen Wolves is that they’re all very dramatic with a lot of bluster (Hapi being the contrasting exception but over-the-top in concept) - they have really been the Kings of their own little world, having a lot of free reign underground, accountable to few and throwing down for the heck of it

So it’s Yuri Leclerc and he was adopted by a Kingdom noble, the same Gwendal and Lonato served  and who dies if Arianrhod is blasted, but it seems like unlike wish Ashe who was taken into the family this was just a temporary gig for him

That makes him a commoner, which by itself is a big difference from the other three. Dimitri is and always was the crown prince whereas Edelgard suddenly ascended the sucession list due to tragedy and Claude has a much doubted claim on both sides of the border

I suspected he was going to be from the kingdom as we already had the Alliance, the Empire and the token Foreigner accounted for - also ‘Yuri’ is a slavic name like ‘Dimitri’ - though being adopted he isn’t necessarily from there

(Later we learn that he was in fact born in a village in the Kingdom)

Also liked the callback to count Gloucester’s sheming and how he had Balthus spy on Claude

They do go through some work to flesh out Abyss and make it feel lived in as a sort of society. 

Just look at that very very makeshift classroom. Few down there were getting any sort of education before Aelfric set this up

They do something clever here where Balthus tells you part of why he’s wanted, prompting the question of everyone else’s stories

This idea of a wretched hive beneath the Church reminds me of Amsterdam where the big church was in the prostitutes’ quarter and they actually had flourishing trade agreements going on

But as a hiding place for outcasts it shows us all the uglyness about fodlan and how much persecution/ need for change there really is (Really wants me to play Crimson Flower again. Or Verdant Wind.)

There’s people “chewed up by the Nobility”

Duscurians and Almyrans

Many in the church want the place “purged”, Rhea wouldnt go so far but is at the very least unsympathetic

Tons of Banned Books (is this where Seteth puuts them?) Claude and Linhardt have a field day over it

That poor woman (probably Dagdan since she talks of a war) who was persecuted for believing in other religions (which was a thing under Rhea - I’ve been saying it, Shamir and Cyril are “allowed” because they work for Rhea which to her is the same as believing, both are “working for her family/ for us instead of against us” because Sothis is not just her god but someone she knows personally)

Yuri and his trouble are a sort of quasi-police or keeping order, reporting to Aelfric. As his second in command Yuri is a sort of “prince” and already lead his own bandit troupe, or perhaps more a chieftain than a prince, he’s a leader, an authority but not an inherited one but 100% selfmade, he comes from nothing - People call him “boss”,

One wonders if he already dressed in this noncomforming manner before comming to the abyss

He is very very self-reliant, decides and opines for himself, gives Byleth backtalk, very much a natural leader who owns his influence entirely to that natural-leader ness 

Byleth asks very good, very direct questions 

Hilda, Linny and Ashe are here because of their connection to the Abyss characters and the information they can provide - Ashe knows Yuri, Linny knows his book lore, Hilda heard rumors from Holst...

Here we get to appreciate why Claude keeps Hilda around she knows all the gossip, all the ‘local’ information that Claude doesn’t have, she’s an excellent info source

Lets appreciate that it was those three specifically because they were slacking off

Ppl say there the church scorns them pretty much I like how they’re no longer even pretending that the church is nice

The four MCs, meanwhile, might all have ended up here in a different life; If El had escaped the experiments she could’ve been like Hapi, Claude was already an outcast, Jeralt fled with Byleth as a refuge(or could have been sent there as a mercenary to torment the locals and then decided to stay there instead), maybe not young!Dimitri, but timesskip Dimitri was outright a vagabond and says in his lecture questions that he travelled many places and temporarily lived in slums he didn’t go full murdery until a few years in, as Gilbert recounts

AU where they all grew up  or met in the Abyss is what im saying, and the four MCs and Yuri team up. The slitherers still stir up war, perhaps Duke Aegir or Arundel made themselves Emperor etc. 

Characteristically, Dimitri really likes the idea of a secret haven for the outcasts (see all his dialogues about “acceptance” and general ‘help-the-orphans’ thing) - but also characteristically he’s a bit of a tool for the status quo- “Claude don’t be rude this guy is giving out charity~” but the issues Dimtri the issues they shouldn’t need to hide anyways and this is why I prefer the ‘revolutionary’ routes (CF and VW) - though to his credit Dimitri does do charity and stop ppl being poor when he’s king. 

Claude is absolutely having a field day, this is right in the way of his “Political program” - “What you’re helping the poor and downtrodden by barely tolerating them in a sunless hole where they have to hope the church doesn’t decide to purge them” They basically live in ever present danger

Bit sad that they had Edelgard “tied up” catching up with Constanze rather than stating a reaction to the abyss as a whole though it’s probably very deliberate that she keeps her cards close to her chest - As constance asks “What is the princess doing here?” - investigating that’s what. She mostly asks questions or voices conclusions - shes certainly also investigating for her own purposes

But of course Dimitri and Ashe, pure as always, immediately want to help the locals

Edelgard meanwhile is thinking strategy, talking of capturing and interrogating the enemy

Of Yuri ppl tell you both that he’s a real scoundrel/ “our scoundrel” - he loooks out for them so they obey him, “when I say jump they jump” - a Mafia leader of sorts. He’s like Claude in the ‘motivating ppl through taking care of their interest’ parts but claude’s alliances are looser and no one does “jump” like Yuri projects authority, its not quite the honor loyalty Dimitri inspired because he “pays”, Edelgard projects authority but it’s loyalty to the cause more than personal loyalty, and she’s an ideologue and inspires the same in her followers theres no “pay” from Edelgard. She warns you that you might die and that’s it. She is the same herself. 

I think Yuri would die for another the way that Claude and Edelgard would not, like when Aelfric got his mom putting her in danger was never an option. I don’t think you could pressure Edelgard with a hostage, she’d just be like “Hostage-kun, I won’t let your death be in vain” and then tell their captors to screw themselves. 

He has things in common with all the others - he has a certain honor and a people-driven leadership style like Dimitri (rather than ideals-driven like Edelgard, Claude and Seteth) - though unlike Dimitri his honor is only for the “in” group, he cares about protecting his turf, his people... and nothing else. Thus he doesn’t fit into the revolutionary (Edelgard, Claude) vs restorer (Dimitri, Seteth) dichotomy because he’s not concerned with the system as a whole - he doesn’t like it or have faith in it, but he will absolutely work with it when it suits his aims (such as when he makes his own alliance with the church behind Aelfric’s back, or just working with Aelfric in the first place)

This alliance is probably also supposed to give a reason why the Wolves would sttick with the church later (though Hapi’s non CF supports talk alot about reforming the crap institution that it is) even though they mostly have reason to dislike them

Like Edelgard he is calculating and ruthless more than Dimitri or Claude. (He laughts at peeps who fell in his trap) But you couldn’t see Yuri sacrificing an ally like Edelgard does (like with Dimitri the people come before the plan) and Yuri often markedly does NOT tell allies what they’re getting into while El makes a big point of telling everyone the risks and allowing them the chance to step out

In a way he’s Claude with a edge but without the big vision. Yuri is the most small-picture, Claude the most big-picture of the lords

They also have a different relationship with trust - some describe Yuri as “devoted to his own but too trusting” , he says it’s a choice... but he is never really fooled, just pretending to be, he solves a great part of his plot on his own. 

Like Claude and Seteth he prefers to play it safe/ know he can win (though Claude and Yuri arent against calculated risks) whereas Edelgard and Dimitri will do what they think is right with no guarantee of victory and don’t care much if it kills them or their followers

Otherwise tho they have a lot in common and are fast friends XD Yuri makes some great observations “Wow look at you three trying to suss out each other’s motivations must be exhausted”

“Doesnt take a title to have an agenda“ - Yuri and Claude are really... a “takes one to know one” situation

Claude tells us they generally get along tho (”Any misunderstanding might spark a war... ”... yeah)

Likewise, Yuri immediately gets that Claude’s friendliness is esentially “maintaining neutrality” more than actual allegiance

Yuri also seems relatively forward in romantic matters which is unlike the others lol

Remember how I was frantic for Claude/Linhardt or Claude/Hubert friendship content? Here’s another great team that ought to have interacted more, I could even see them working romantically assuming that Claude would be so inclined. 

Hapi/Sylvain, too! Because they’re both cynics

But despite her cynism Hapi is also characterized as considerate

Yuri likes board games! hes in the board game squad with Hubert, Claude, Sylvain and Edelgard. The Board Game squad is incidentally the Best Characters club

 He’s not big picture and only develops something like that toward the end of his support chain (to fight poverty)

So in a sense his style and the hole in it is more like Byleth’s own - he learnt practical leadership in the field and applies it for those he likes. He’s more self-directed

aaand more undercover fun

It seems that both the slitherers and Alferic were after the Chalice at the same time - the Death Knight’s presence hints at it, Metodey’s confirms it. So far I’d assumed he was one of Edelgard’s loyalists like Ladislava but it seems he works directly for Arundel, Edelgard is not too friendly with him and accuses him of “Disrespecting her house” 

Since Aegir was in power during the Bridgid and Dagda war, the slitherers could definitely have had something to do with how Constance’s family was treated, if they were onto her secret - I don’t see how Aelfric could have done it

Bold of El to order Jeritza away in broad daylight. At this point she’s probably come to accept that no orders are gonna keep him from Fiting PPl where he can, especially her she is a very tough opponent

I trusted Aelfric until he spoke. The voice is... its not a good guy voice. Same with how the eyes are drawn

then he called people “his flock”

“They are charitable only when it suits them”

“they have eyes and ears everywhere”

Yeah. I’ve always said that Rhea is like one of those millionaires who give their pocket change to charity but then support policies that keep people poor. Hopefully no one will keep arguing that she cares about the poor or the disenfranchised. 

“Her grace thinks its a nuisance”- This tells us alot. Alfric had to convince Rhea to give half a rats ass about the poor but still speaks of her with honorifics. That’s the crack in his soul right there

I also love how Yuri protests whenever anyone - the church etc make plans for him, hes very self-governed

Hapi, Lysithea, El and Byleth should have a “victims of human experimentation” support group

Alternatively, Cursed People support group with Hapi, Marianne, Bernadetta and Dimitri

I like the C supports with Byleth and Balthus as well as Hapi because they tell us not just about them but about Byleth - Both adress Byleth’s go-with-the-flow tendencies and lack of own direction, though Byleth makes clear that by this point they actually like the professor gig

“I could see this person just about anywhere”...in a bad way. Oh but Hapi you too can be recruited to all routes XD No she’s right. By-By is being used and she should tell them. 

MORE PARENTS LORE I rejoiced so much and this was such a cool thing to adress here

At first it seems that Rhea was also after the chalice but turns out she had written it off and the one pursuing it within the church was Aelfric

But you all do catch the implication that she did this all before and “great tragedy” resulted? Right? You get what that means?

For once she actually noticed a mole though Aelfric likely wasn’t subtle

It results in a zombie dragon because she meant to revive a dragon not a human

By now people should really be used to Rhea handing out legendary treasure to byleth

there are friendly reminders of the western church purge still going on

I like how constance smells a spy right away

Also the contrast between Hapi’s jaded “Lets just give them the thing so they leave us in peace” (Yes, Lapis Lazuli) and Constance’s “We can’t let them have the artifact! theyre bad” - Constance might be shrill but she’s a person of action

The sunlight thing is a tad over the top/unrealistic but it’s not per se the cliched split personality thing, more like going outside brings out the bad memories after hiding away underground for so long (she tells mercedes as much) while she otherwise covers it with bluster. Her parents and older brother were killed and her hometown destroyed, after all. She is still basically talking the same overdramatic/ formal way

Perhaps two sides of nobility like the pride but also the demure good breeding n shit, there is some forced quality to the bluster even indoors

But ultimately she’s pretty hard working and determined underneath

At one point Hilda says something like, “You sure that we should interfere? I don’t want to make anything worse it might be better to stay out” - This right here is why you can’t get CF Hilda

Further Hilda facts: She had countless suitors and knows her way around “magical doo daads” and fortune telling

Having her mildly superstitious is of course a fun contrast to claude

“Compared to you even Hubert looks like a spring chicken” lol

I was going “Linny I love you” the whole time

Speaking of love... The moment I decided I loved Yuri is when I learned why he was expulsed - because the church sent him to kill someone he knew and rather than be upset, or thing how he might change society to prevent it or draw other conclusions from it... He refused on the spot and fough church ppl. That’s when I saw how he fits with the other characters. What the contrast was.

Yuri is one of those rare types who would never give the full voltage in the milgram experiment

Because see? That ties back so well into the themes

One of the main scenes that contrasts the house leaders is their reaction over having to fight Lonato. They all sympathize to a degree, but none acts against it. Claude and Edelgard show their dislike of the church and want to stop crap like this, but right there right then, they play along for the sake of their plans. (Claude’s plan at this point still involves stealing relics)

Dimitri is the closest to Yuri in that he immediately regrets it massively and says they should have found another way (in part because he is against the notion of “sacrifices for the plan”) but this realization comes to him only after all is done because ultimately he follows authority/ sees some good in it and the status quo

Yuri,  meanwhile, flat out refused. Yeah he also killed whoever the knight escord was but he refused

Also let this sink in: Yuri was slated for execution because he refused to kill someone he knew. This is what might have happened to Ashe, Sylvain etc. if they had refused to fight Lonato or Miklan. 

Aelfric arranged for him to fight someone he knew but that’s all he did, the rest is the result of normal church policy and then begged for pardon (meaning the normal policy would be to kill him) The mission might have gone to a different house, but the church constantly makes ppl fight ppl they know. You realize just how easily all our beloved characters could have ended up just like Yuri?!

I loved how, when offered info about their parents, Byleth immediately seeks it out with no delay

“Never discard a wild hunch lol“ Claude I love you Linhard I love you

Generally we see Dimitri being the local people person and catching onto details about people’s emotions and dispositions , while Edelgard is like, “Investigate this, investigate that” (i love that about her), and Claude is the oddball/curveball and follows his intuition. Yuri goes on instinct, Seteth, if I had to say, on experience perhaps, certainly caution. 

So she doesn’t even recognize Dimitri. She did say that “she can’t say the name” so she probably never learned that her little friend was the prince. Can ppl stop acting like she snubbed Dimitri or like she has any reason to treat him like a brother?

I don’t think he pieced it together until the ball, and she only realized either during the parlay (AM) or some time before their final confrontation (She distinctly knows by the time she killed him)

Another poignant moment is when she basically didn’t trst Aelfric and only started considering that he might be good by the time Team Slither showed up. Yeah she’s not trusting and would have zero base assumptions that any church ppl are good

By the time she learns about the Nuvelle crest she’s so done like, “Are there any MORE conspiracies I should be aware of?” And indeed there are

Aelfric is sort of a consequence of Rhea’s coverup certainly not an 1D villain. He started doubting her after the coverup began semi thinking for himself and at first this led him to try and make the abyss less chaotic and speak in their favor before Rhea, but then when Sitri’s body fell into his hands he was just too tempted

And UGH remember when I said that for all that im not a Rhea fan, i don’t thnk the human experimentation was so bad because she didn’t harm anyone and it seems like the homunculi lived out normal lives? yeah i take that back

Even if Sitri wasn’t healthy enough to travel she didn’t need to be completely isolated exept for trusted church peeps

This would have happened to Byleth. You see how this would have happened to Byleth? Completely isolated and controlled?

Oh Jeralt jeralt baby you were so right to flee with Byleth so right

Worse because Rhea was a parental figure

Also she kept creating more homunculi though they turn out frail and basically live miserable lives

and the first attempt with the chalice probably did kill ppl

sitting with the corpse all the time is creepy too

doest that mean Byleth won’t rot either?

So she was a book worm - Jeralt did say she was brainy

It did start as a mentor crush, much like Byleth’s own relationship might

I love how Edelgard is all subtly concerned after Yuris fake attack

I wonder how that apology line was phrased in Japanese, “useless” seems a bit harsh given that Edelgard generally seems to love her father, but there is no denying that he lost control of his empire and that as a result villains wrecked havock all over it so there’s nothing better she can say there excuses wont help constances situation

Like this must be very hard for her

Constance’s support definitely confirms that it was the Seven Families/ ie the PM and Arundel who did this to her (also lol at the concept that she basically wants to make Byleth her very own Hubert or Gilbert)

Edelgard is saddled with all this stuff from the previous administration - I mean so is Dimitri with the instability, the recent anexation of Duscur and part of Sreng... but she gets confronted with it more, iDK if it’s common knowledge who’s really in charge

Because Yuri is concerned with his turf, not the world, it makes sense that “his” route would be the sidestory. I kind of wanted a part 2 in the sense that I like this cast and want more of him as a main character but I also get why there isn’t one... because he wins no matter what. Lucky seven! He’s the one who can’t lose (except if you dont do the sidestory I guess) ”He works with whoever’s in power to maintain his own, just like when he made the deal with Rhea. He gets all three house leaders and Byleth to promise that they will look out for the Abyss so his bases are covered no matter who wins.

- even so he basically solved his own problem and Byleth’s presence just kinda gave him the opportunity . Well, one defining factor is that they trust Byleth exactly because they don’t “seem like a typical church funky

Still since Rhea tells us the backstory here what use is the silver snow ending? I suppose she doesn’t mention the homunculus/ “I created you” bit but the lack of decay and the transplanting heart bits do sort of hint at it

Certainly a contrast tho, like in SS you learn the magicky parts us in CS you get way more about who mommy actually was as a person

Poor, Poor Byleth. This must be such a mindfrick for them. Like I had so many feels for By-By

It’s so weird to go back and have the Yuri & so present throughout the monastery,but  not know us yet

[supergenial]

Three Houses sucks actually

It’s been a whole month so after about 180 hours of play and doing all four routes, I thought I’d write down all the minor nitpicks that upset me about this fantastic game. Obviously spoilers ahead.

First of all, I do think it’s a great game, it’s one of my favorite fire emblem titles so far. I will not claim to be a veteran, but I have been playing since the gba games, I’ve played every game between fe6 and three houses, even fe12. I know genealogy is supposed to be GOAT but I’m holding out for a remake like I did with gaiden (and boy, waiting payed up big time on that one). Also if you love this game and think it’s perfect, that is awesome, I urge you to not read this so you don’t get upset about someone not understanding the game that you love (even though I love it too). Anyway, let’s begin:

I. The Four Routes are bad (together)

This game presents the player with a choice of 3 houses they can join, with that decision deciding which story you actually get to see. Along with Lion, Eagle and Deer, there’s also a “Church” route that is kind of lame, but not game-ruining. On their own they’re all actually pretty darn good stories. But these routes are extremely flawed. Not intrinsically, mind-you, but rather as a whole. In a game with multiple routes, you’d expect them to complement each other but instead each route actively makes the other ones actually worse. Do keep in mind that I think each route is pretty good on it’s own (even church) whichever one you pick first you will enjoy it greatly, and it will only deteriorate as you progress through the others.

Edelgard’s route is a political story of a revolutionary who wants to crush aristocracy and replace it with a meritocracy, her objective therefore is to crush the church that oversees the 3 nations. It feels like something out of shin megami tensei, she’s basically a chaos hero (which I usually hate) but with some nuance and less insane. It’s a great route! Gameplay-wise, it is my favorite, and also has the most thematic cohesion with the early game where all the students have misgivings about their noble status. Problem is it would have you believe that Dimitri has a complex ideological reason for standing up against her and protecting the church, when in reality playing his route tells you that he really has no political ideologies that he believes in (he straight up says this to Mercedes in their A support), he’s just a king defending his territory, which is really underwhelming as he has no parallels or contrasting motifs in regards to her, he’s just a dude. Another awful thing that basically everyone agrees is bad about this route is Those Who Slither in the Dark, a group that is set up as villains that have to be defeated, but instead get dealt with off-screen in the epilogue. You’d think it’s because they were lazy, and didn’t want to make a level for them, but there’s 2 routes in which you do fight them, they have their own level already in the game, it’s just not in this route. The plotline then just feels very lazy and incomplete, but even moreso once you play Claude’s route and you just... you just fight against those who slither, which is all I wanted to do at the end of Edelgard’s route. Perhaps the most disappointing route, but I happen to have an affinity for disappointment and the themes it goes for.

Dimtri’s route is a fantastic story of a broken man reclaiming his sanity. It’s the most character-driven and the most emotionally charged of the three. It’s an amazing route! Easily the best written as it picks a single theme (Dimitri’s downfall and rise) and does it extremely well instead of spreading too wide and losing focus. The ending is a bit underwhelming though. Basically everything after Dimitri recovers his humanity feels like filler, though his A supports are really amazing, all of them, making his post-feral phase worth it. The bigger problem is that this route actively sabotages the player’s enthusiasm towards playing Edelgard’s route as it paints her as the ultimate evil, the True and Only villain that has to be defeated. As such, a lot of the reaction I’ve seen online is that people who play this one first flat out refuse to play Edelgard’s route because really, why would you? She’s badbadnotgood, her sanity and reasoning are as flimsy as it gets, and she broke Dimitri’s heart when he was a kid, along with killing his entire family according to this route. You’d have to be insane to be excited to play as her, it’s something you’d only do for the sake of completionism. In the church and deer route you fight Edelgard too, but she’s presented as a well-intentioned extremist rather than an evil snake. Yes, even in the church route, the very one thing she wants to destroy!

Claude’s route on the other hand is so complete it suffers from it. It goes over every major plotline and actually solves it with very little thematic resonance between it all. Those who slide? He takes care of them. Rhea’s misdeeds? They’re acknowledged. Edelgard isn’t insane? He agrees. Who exactly was Nemesis?(the very first cutscene we’re shown!) Got it too. What is Sothis, what happened to her, why is she bound to Byleth? Got it. His route is ridiculous in that it covers too much ground and lore that could’ve been better put in the church route as it has no real thematic cohesion with Claude. He wants to end racism or something, ok cool, but he never fights any “race-realists”, none of the villains in his route are diametrically opposed to his ideals, and his final boss is a last minute diabolus ex machina with no real theme to it. It would’ve been easy to drive the point further that by beating the deadlords they’re burying the prejudices of the past and forging a new world without their literal ancestors hanging over them, but instead the scene goes for a sort of power of friendship type of feel and just rolls with that. It’s an exciting route with many hype moments, but when put together with the other ones, it feels kind of really weird that his route is basically a lore dump to fill in the lore gaps rather than a story about something.

It’s a given that in a game with 3 routes each one would tell their side of their story and be somewhat incomplete, leading the player to play all three to get the whole story. Instead these 3 routes actively try to drag each other lower instead of boosting each other higher, which is really disappointing. 

Don’t even get me started on the church route, that shouldn’t even be in the game at all. It’s the same as Claude’s route, the exact same, but without Claude. Ok so that means Seteth gets a lot of development in this route right? No, not really, he’s just kind of there. Rather than Seteth being the lord of the route it’s more like this is a lord-less route. Ghost Dimitri is a really cool scene, for sure, but outside of that seriously screw this route. You might think “well but I like Rhea, I want to be on her side”, well spoiler alert kiddo: you literally fight Rhea in this route, she’s the final boss. And you don’t get to hang out with her all that much either so forget about that. While I dislike Rhea, I think having a route for her is reasonable since that sickening mommy fetish is so popular these days so of course you’d want to pander to that audience for that sweet cash, but people who like Rhea don’t even get that because you have to actually kill her at the end (which I actually really like, it made the church route Actually Good for me, plus it’s a really fun level despite being yet another fight at Garreg Mach, more on that later). Also in this route you don’t get to see Rhea in her Seiros armor that is 10/10 hot as shit so why even bother, go play Edelgard’s route if you want to see some actually cool Rhea scenes and quotes.

edit: just been informed Rhea does live if you S-support her, kind of disappointed but ok, that’s pretty good for all who liked her and it makes sense.

II. Claude, the master tactician

“Ugh, don’t call me that”, Even he’s fed up with the title

My favorite of the three lords in the game is easily Claude but it’s pretty unfair that he survives every single route (unless you actively choose not to spare him in Edelgard’s route), whereas Dimitri and Edelgard always die outside of their routes. But that’s not the worst of him, what I hate about him is how he gets hyped up as THE MASTER STRATEGIST whenever other characters speak of him. Granted, writing a “Smart” character is hard because you have to be smart or else the readers won’t buy it, but the writers don’t even try and instead make him out to be a complete fool in almost every route (he’s actually pretty smart in the church route imo, but he’s also never seen in that one).

In his route, he does exhibit some degree of strategy and thought, devising a trap to protect Garreg Mach (by setting his allies on fire???) and doing a bit of a Trojan Horse when seizing Fort Merceus. However, if you play Dimitri’s route, Gilbert suggests doing the fire thing, and in the church route you just infiltrate Fort Merceus in the exact same way. So congratulations Claude, you’re about as smart as... Gilbert, a character that no one ever refers to as a strategic or military genius. This is another case of routes weighting down other routes, if you only play his route you think “oh yeah, he’s smart, he Trojan Horse’d the empire, what an absolute madlad”, but once you play the other routes it’s like, oh, ok, I guess that’s just meant to happen that way whichever side you choose.

Ok, maybe he’s not a genius master strategist in his story, sure, after all Byleth is the tactician so of course he’d take a back seat, but what about as an enemy commander? he’s gotta have some devious map design to back up his claim to genius, right? Wrong.

In Dimitri’s route you fight Claude and Edelgard post-timeskip at Gronder Field just like you did before the timeskip. In this battle, Claude’s objective is to stop Edelgard. You think to yourself, oh that’s wonderful, an ally! Together we’ll crush that evil snake together! Except his army focuses yours, instead of going straight for Edelgard, as he did in the very same battle pre-timeskip. The game says there’s some fog, but guess what, this game HAS a fog mechanic to make some maps have low-visibility, and that fog is not present in this map! As such, he comes off as a total doofus in this chapter. This battle feels like Batman v Superman, a fight that just “has” to happen to sell the idea that the heroes are against each other, but Batman and Superman shouldn’t be fighting at all to begin with, they’re on the same side! They only fight because it’s the “hype” thing to do. Sigh.

Later on in the same route Claude is attacked by the empire in his hometown. His “master strategy” is to corner himself against an army that outnumbers his army 10:1, and trust that Dimitri will save him, the very same Dimitri that nearly killed him a couple days ago at Gronder Field. This is a pretty stupid and naive strategy on it’s own, but it gets worse once you look at the enemy troops in this map. They are all horses or infantry, not a single flier. Claude himself, he rides a wyvern. He could’ve escaped out to the sea, you might even think that’s his plan, but no, because Judith is there in the map and she certainly isn’t riding a wyvern, same goes for all his other men. Imagine the mockery, the sheer audacity of driving your enemy into a corner and thinking you’ll kill him only for all his men to suddenly get on wyverns and escape from you, which is possible thanks to the mount/unmount mechanic. Just imagine, you’re trying to save him and upon reaching halfway through the map, he and all his men get on wyverns and escape, saying they’ll trust you to take care of the empire as they run away, as you realize he just fooled you into taking out the trash for him. It would’ve been awesome! A moment worthy of The Master Trickster, but no, you just have to kill the boss before he kills Claude and Judith and that’s the map, that’s the whole thing.

And don’t even get me started on his map on Edelgard’s route. For a whole month people hype Claude up to be John Von Neumann combined with The Joker and Sun Tzu, so I’m expecting his level to be a really twisted one: warps, damaging terrain, falco knights with horse slayers, ballistae, swordmasters with armorslayers, siege tomes, sleep staves, berserk staves, etc. Instead, the level in which you fight against Claude has basically 0 unusual terrains, his “master strategy” is to just call for reinforcements until you cut off the source of reinforcements. This means that his “incredibly genius master tactic of galaxy-brain depth” is to use brute force, which is literally the exact opposite of clever tactics. Needless to say, this was to me the biggest disappointment, really wasted that opportunity to make a level that’s actually unique.

Then you go on to fight Dimitri’s right afterwards and guess what: his map has a siege tome user(with decent crit rate!), it has a unique monster gimmick where you have to kill an enemy every turn to avoid them turning into monsters, it has 4 commanders all calling for reinforcements leaving you to choose wisely which one needs to be stopped first, it has a river separating both sides of the map so that your teams have to be cleanly split up if going for multiple objectives, etc. It’s my favorite level in the game because it’s well thought out, interesting and basically more like what you’d expect of the mission where you’d fight a tactical mastermind. Sigh.

III. Ideological Conflict (a lack of it)

This is my biggest issue with the game

I really memed myself playing Edelgard's route so early because as I said previously it feels like a shin megami tensei chaos-route. She is fighting for an ideal, and so I falsely developed the hope that the game would have an ideological conflict. If you play Claude's route, you see that he is also fighting for his ideals, dude wants to end racism, that is awesome! However even when the characters do fight each other, their ideals are never in conflict. In Edelgard’s paralogue you fend off an almyrian invasion but she tells Byleth that she wishes they could be allies, and that in the future they should sit down and talk with almyrians to make their relationship better. In Claude’s route he is often fed up with the church’s historical revisionism and you can see he holds a lot of contempt for the institution as a whole. Edelgard and Claude may fight each other due to circumstance but their ideals are never against each other, in fact they kind of want the same things. And surely enough, Dimitri also thinks racism is whack, which is mostly explored through his relationship with Dedue. But Dimitri just doesn’t really believe in anything, in his route he’s completely reactive to the forces around him, there’s just no ideal world that he’s working towards, instead he just deals with the bullshit others have set in his way (not that there’s anything actually wrong with that, it’s just really underwhelming when the other stories are about ideals). 

And really that’s ok. Like I said this is a problem of my own I memed myself into thinking I was playing a much better game, and only have myself to blame for those expectations. It’s very normal of intelligent systems to not want to put into the game a playable character who is racist or anti-equality. Except we have Lorenz and Ferdinand, two characters that are so fiercely pro-aristocracy I started the game hating them(nowadays Ferdinand is easily in my top 5). Ferdinand believes that nobility is a cross to be carried for the good of the people and that rather than a highway to an easy life, it is a tremendous responsibility to bear and that commoners are better off relying on a noble like himself to make their lives better.

Nobility being a cross is something supported by the narrative! There are many characters dissatisfied with their lives solely because they were born as nobles and have to deal with problems exclusive to nobles, most notably Sylvain, Ingrid and then Mercedes who straight up becomes a commoner because of the pressure of nobility. Lorenz on the other hand has been pressured by his family so much he’s a completely brainwashed tool of the aristocrats, but as the game progresses he gets his head out of his ass and becomes a more likeable character. 

“Edelgard intends to abolish the nobility, but I know I can disuade her”, Ferdinand you bumbling fool, that is literally her main policy, have you ever actually listened to her?

Those two show it is possible for the team to write characters with bad ideals and then develop them into likeable ones, they just didn’t feel like having a lord that upholds bad ideals and grows out of them or is betrayed by their shortcomings. Hell, just imagine if after the last chapter in black eagles those who slither betrayed Edelgard instantly, showing that allying yourself with villainous people only because they’re convenient is sure to lead to betrayal. It would’ve been a sobering moment to see her say that maybe, maybe pairing up with mustache-twirling bad guys might have been a bad idea after all and having to really consider the damage she might have caused by letting them co-exist with her for her goals. Instead her route just ends, significantly shorter than all others. Aghhh. But yeah, this is a problem of my own expectations because fire emblem never had amazingly complex stories to begin with (I know I know, genealogy is supposed to be pretty deep, but that was over 20 years ago, it’s just not relevant to modern fire emblem until it gets a remake).

“Wait so you want Dimitri to be racist?” Oh hell no. Dimitri is literally perfect as he is, just look at him. What I’m saying is he should’ve gotten his own game, because he doesn’t fit in with the other two lords in this game as he has no vision of how the world should be (other than “Good”) and no ideological struggle he needs the world to understand. His story just doesn’t need Fodlan. The kicker is that his house, were it not for their tight and adorable friendship, is the one that is more likely to side with Edelgard as Sylvain, Mercedes, Ingrid, and Felix all hate nobility/aristocracy, and Ashe’s dad whom he idolizes literally gets sentenced to death by the church. Dimitri on a solo game would’ve been a cool story (better than Fates that’s for sure). But in three houses he doesn’t complement the other two lords, and the other two lords also bring him down. It’s what I’ve been saying: the routes just don’t complement each other. Remember how I said many people played Blue Lions and then just flat out refused to play the other routes? It sounded like I was belittling them but those people were right, they’re living their best life and I applaud them, they truly beat the game.

Worth noting that the church route is technically, from an outside perspective, a pro-aristocracy route. The black eagles students are all aristocrats except for Dorothea, and in this route it’d be a fair observation to say that they’re a bunch of spoiled kids who are trying to preserve the status-quo because they don’t want to give up their lands and servants. Obviously this isn’t how the route approaches character motivations, but an incisive in-world historian would’ve made this scathing observation by simply looking at who’s spearheading the revolt against the emperor: a bunch of rich kids.

IV. The Pre-Timeskip common route (FOUR times)

Moving onto gameplay-related nitpicks: what were they thinking? There’s like 13 chapters before the timeskip in every route, and they are always the same missions regardless of which house you choose. One of them is to kill Ashe’s dad and the other one is to kill Sylvain’s brother, you would think those missions would be exclusive to the blue lions and that other routes would have an equivalent for them: a story that hits home, that gets personal with one of the characters you chose and more importantly that just plays differently across all the routes. Instead the game would have you play the same missions 4 times so that you end up dreading the sight of them, on top of them having no real relation to the characters you’re using in 3/4ths of the routes. If the dlc route has me defend Garreg Mach even one more time, I’ll just go insane. Speaking of that:

V. Dimitri, Claude and Church route all have same maps

If you feel like playing all four routes, it’s gonna feel like you’re just playing the exact same game over and over. The maps you play in are literally all the same. And Edelgard isn’t scot-free either, but at least in her maps you fight from the other perspective of the map you know, you’re at least coming at it from another angle (though she will still have you defend Garreg Mach post-timeskip, completely negating the pleasure of not doing that pre-timeskip). I get it: these maps are huge, and they’re highly detailed because you can zoom in and literally see the battalions and all that, it’s really super neat and takes a lot of time to make so you can’t just have a hundred maps. But I mean by the end of the game (that is, playing all four routes) looking at any of the maps feels so tiring. I feel like I might just never replay any of the routes at least for a very long time because I’ve grown sick of seeing them over and over and over so many times. And dear lord, if I have to play Flayn’s paralogue one more time without fliers I’ll just shoot myself. Speaking of fliers.

VI. Fliers are absurdly broken

Literally what were they thinking. Wyvern Riders have absolutely insane stats and thanks to the dismount feature, they lose nothing by being in that class. The last levels in Claude and Edelgard’s routes are severely favored toward fliers too, both of them featuring tons of damaging terrain that is hard to cross for horses, though at least Nemesis has the decency of having many ballistae set up (probably because Claude himself is a flier so they expect you to have at least one). Also all that damaging terrain screws over horses because they thought horses were broken or something. But really, you’d think mobility is such an important stat that they’d compensate for it elsewhere, but no, all you lose is the opportunity cost of not having more crit as a war master (which female characters don’t have access to anyway) or being able to use magic. And horse units just get screwed over in every conceivable way, you’d expect that they at least get some beefy additional stats over wyvern riders but instead they’re actually weaker since wyverns are faster and speed is such an important stat. Also wyverns have so much defense that even in hard mode arrows (their supposed weakness) will have trouble denting them (or even hitting them thanks to their extremely high avoid).

edit: I also invite you to look at the growth rate modifiers for each class and see that all horse classes provide a negative speed growth rate, which is bad enough without realizing that wyverns are so minmaxed they even provide a cute minus 5 magic as a “balance” while getting boosts to both defense and speed in their final class. Are you kidding me? Horses are basically a player trap, they look cool and they’re half the master classes so they gotta be useful, right? Couldn’t be more wrong. Also what’s the deal with mortal savant providing -10% speed growth, that shit is bananas, how could the Naruto class hamper your speed if Naruto is all about that running, IT’S INSANE.

This is all exacerbated once you go for a low-turn-count playthrough, a fairly popular style of play among fans of the series where as the name indicates you try to beat the levels in as few turns as possible. Suddenly fliers go from clearly the strongest, to necessary. What’s absurd is how fliers are affected by the Stride battalion in the same way all other units are. Stride is a battalion effect that allows a group of units to have higher movement for one turn, your little walking units suddenly being able to walk 12 squares like it’s nothing feels pretty good but this battalion can also boost the movement of fliers and horses which means: why would you waste it on infantry units? It would’ve been so easy, and would’ve made so much sense for stride to only work on walking units, or to at least have reduced effectiveness on mounted units, but they just completely forgot that.

I knew I should’ve gone wyvern, could’ve had way more 1′s

VII. Crests

Oh wow, a neat game feature where each character has a unique skill related to their bloodline, and the story acknowledges their existence by saying they’re so highly valued they decide who’s noble and who isn’t. Surely they came up with really interesting effects for all of them, right? Wrong. “Raise Mt when using skills”, “Raise Mt when using magic”, “Raise Mt when attacking”. This shit is boring. But hey it’s ok right, you can’t expect them to come up with unique interesting skills for each character to have right? Except they did, each character (crest-bearer or not) has a personal skill, and they are all way more interesting than crests. The only non-boring crests are the ones bore by Annete, Mercedes, Hilda and Ferdinand. And Annete doesn’t even learn meteor, so her magic-conservation isn’t even that amazing once she becomes a gremory, though it probably is fairly useful if she becomes a dark knight instead. I will say though, crests are still way better than the personal crit skills from radiant dawn, like Stun and the like which were basically glorified critical hits in some cases or straight up silencers in the case of luna or eclipse (hell, those skills got so bad that the endgame is filled with Nihil wielders, characters who just straight up cancel the activation of enemy skills because the game itself had to patch them out preemptively due to how ridiculous they were, but at least they were impressive and memorable and not just “raise Mt a little bit sometimes” are you kidding me).

VIII. Lost items

Up until now these have all been nitpicks but if anything gets my blood boiling is those dreaded lost items, a gameplay feature that I just straight up gave up on and never looked back. You find a billion lost items throughout the monastery, which is great, an item that shows the personality of the character that lost it, and once you return it to them your affection grows. The problem is that there’s really like a hundred of them, and they’re not hard to find but rather are a pain to give back to their owners, for the screen where you select them doesn’t allow for any kind of sorting options. How hard was it isys?? I press X and the items are ordered alphabetically, was that really so hard? You really expect me to rummage through this endless list until I find the right one from the sea of really small text for ants? THIS IS THE REAL GAMEBREAKER, THIS IS WHERE IT ALL FALLS APART AND I REALIZE THIS GAME IS A TOOL OF THE DEVIL TO WRECK HAVOC INTO THE SOULS OF ALL PLAYERS.

In the end

So yeah, basically it’s a pretty good game, I’d say at least a 9/10 and unironically among my favorite fire emblems. I won’t go into detail about what I like because that’s not the point of the post and really who gives a shit, but it’s really good and I can’t wait for the dlc next year! Also this:

(also please let magic always function like in this game where instead of tomes and staves you have a set number of uses per encounter like it’s dungeons and dragons, that shit ruled)

edit: I did another post about the maddening difficulty, you might like it if you have read this far