From my experience, chaos theory applies quite
adequately to videogames. Minor uninspired decisions made at the beginning of a
playthrough can pretty much expand into massive hurdles as said playthrough
unfolds, totally ruining the whole experience in their wake. However, tinkering
with the offending parameters can work miracles and make way for a much more
pleasant playthrough. I've been copiously using that trick to great effect,
from Dragon
Quest IX to Animal
Crossing, and I decided
to let it work its magic once again on Fates.
I came to realise in the last hours that despite my best efforts, my
run couldn't be
salvaged. I had made too many bad decisions, taken too many wrong turns and
wasted too much time on endeavours that turned out to be unproductive, ruining
my whole playthrough beyond repair in the process. I needed to wipe the slate
clean and start anew, and that's exactly what I did by erasing my save and
restarting the game from the so-called "branch of fates" where paths
diverge, choosing Hoshido once again.
My first change was to opt for a female Corrin instead of a male one. My reasoning was that the moe-ladden behaviour of my male units would be easier to swallow if it were directed towards a female character, because it would then pass as chivalry or galantry rather than boy's love innuendos. I was also secretly hoping than the bonding scenes would be toned-down for male mates and that I would escape embarrassing kissing simulations. To my utter delight, my assumptions and estimates proved quite accurate, and that fresh new start with "Lady Corrin", as she's respectfully called by my force, totally feels like the right decision. There is also something more intangible at work there: for some unfathomable reason, I do feel that the whole story works better with a female Corrin. Granted, this may be a personal impression only; but on the other hand, I never experienced this kind of feeling with Pokemon or Avalon Code, whose stories flow just as naturally with characters of both sexes. I'd be curious to know if other players feel the same—because sometimes, stories do indeed work better with a character of a given sex for a myriad of intangible reasons—or if this is really just an idiosyncrasy of mine.
Then there was the Kaze issue, which needed to be resolved at all costs. Kaze was my absolute favourite unit by a very long shot—heck, I liked him considerably more than my Corrin—and to lose him was quite a blow to my morale. I knew I had to save him during that second playthrough; and since this can be achieved through gaining A support rank with Corrin (kudos to Elisa for letting me know about this), I figured that I could as well go all the way and pair my stoic, aloof, noble-looking female Corrin with equally stoic, aloof and noble-looking Kaze. As I'm a total sucker for stoic, aloof, noble-looking characters, this was absolutely a match made in heaven; and it certainly helps that the support conversations between these two were both intense and full of restraint and thus quite fascinating to watch. This riveting dynamic is maintained during the bonding sessions, which are a glorious mix of reserve, formality, frankness and forwardness on Kaze's part. If the Corrin/Azura bonding sessions were often reminiscent of dates between teenage lovers, Corrin and Kaze's brand of bonding is much more genuinely akin to intimacy between adult spouses, which suits my tastes better. At any rate, that matter is now solved, and I can relax and indulge in the joy of fighting with my favourite unit throughout the whole game without fearing that he'll be removed from my force. Life is sweet!
Matchmaking aside, my main goal with that second playthrough is to keep things tight and streamlined in order to preserve the game's pacing and to avoid ending quagmired in boredom like the first time around. This implies focusing solely on a limited number of units and ditching the rest without mercy; and this is actually a much-needed relief, given how much of a hassle it had proven to maintain an evenly leveled-up force during my first playthrough. As a consequence, I will spare myself the trouble of clearing the Paralogues—except if I have a really, really massive crush on the involved kid. None of the units recruited during these Paralogues were stellar anyway, and some of them were giant walking liabilities. (I'm looking at you, Mozu. Oh, the hours I wasted leveling-you up to no avail, because you were always so bloody weak.) And while I'm at it, I will also skip Invasions, which means that I can avoid wasting my food on Lilith and use it to power up my units instead thanks to the Mess Hall. Two birds with one stone! This time around, I will also play matchmaker more actively and let love bloom between units, for the sake of increased performances on the battlefield—and also a little bit for the sake of entertainment: I've gotten used to the feature and I have to admit that it's both cute and amusing to see units growing closer and finally tying the knot.
I've been following these new guidelines for a couple of chapters now and I'm having quite a blast. Battles are much more interesting and thrilling now that there are less of them and that my crew is tighter and not overleveled anymore, and I love catering to my favourite units and molding them into ultimate soldiers. This revamped run of Fates/Birthright is the absolute treat and proves yet again that every game deserves a second chance. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a fiery battle/matchmaking session to attend. More news of my exciting brand-new run soon! Thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!
Glad to know
this run is going much better for you! Oddly enough, while I can't comment on
it on Fates, I think a female protagonist also worked better in Awakening.
Mostly because the other main character was Chrom, whom you had to get married
by the half of the story, and the main character was the only wife who remained
relevant after the marriage. Not to mention the story relied so much on their
deep bond, even if you choose a male character there are still lines about how
much he loves Chrom. The most relevant female character also works better if
the protagonist is their mother, there are DLCs which have special events if
Chrom marries the protagonist, but not any of his other wifes, etc. It just
feels better overall.
Maybe Fire Emblem is leaning towards female protagonists? I thought that a male
character would have more focus this time around, since the game's
co-protagonist is female, but apparently not. Of course, this might be because
of bias and personal impression.
The presence of
Azura as Fate's co-protagonist is one of the reasons that initially prompted me
to choose a male Corrin. I was planning to marry her and see where it would go
from there, and I was expecting interesting developments.
The problem is, Azura is painfully transparent on top of being a crappy
fighter. Far from playing an important role in the narrative, she is (at least
so far) reduced to occasional cameos that more often than not fail to make an
impression. And her overall immature behaviour and sloppy looks certainly don't
help her case. I expected a goddess-like mysterious woman full of poise and
dignity, and what I got instead was an infantile slob who cannot comb her hair
properly and constantly looks like she just woke up from a nap. That was quite
a disappointment, I can tell you that.
Really, it's not a coincidence if I ended up valuing Kaze considerably more
than Azura: not only is he stellar in battle, but he gets as much screen time
as Azura and more character development than her.
Really? I was
totally not expecting that to be the case. I though anyone other than Azura and
the royal families would get shafted for screentime and character development.
Especially considering Azura is with you in every route. I know so is Kaze, but
I wasn't expecting the shared characters to be more than battle fodder. This is
excellent news.
I'm betting Azura will be more important in the revelations path. But since you
don't like her, I guess it won't matter much :p Chrom sounds way better than
her: even if you don't like his personality, he was awesome in battle and was
deeply involved in the story.
I think you're
going to like Birthright then, because the royal family doesn't really get that
much spotlight. On the other hand, plenty of shared characters get a decent
chunk of screentime, including your butler/maid, Rinkah, Silas, and of course
Kaze. Overall, the game tries its hardest to give every character its 15
minutes of fame, which is great.
So Kaze is in every route? How awesome! I'm curious to see how he will be
included in the Nohr route; because from what I remember, he was persona non
grata in Nohr... :P
The way I see it, Azura's role in the story is both too conspicuous and too
inexistent. I mean, it's pretty obvious that she's some kind of
goddess/magician/whatever with the ability to foresee the future and to travel
between parallel universes to monitor and/or influence events, which makes her
a tremendously important character. But on the other hand, her actual actions
in the story are pretty limited, making her more of a silent observer than
anything else. She'll probably end up being a deux ex machina at some point,
which is not something I'm looking forward to.
So I've finally
started the game myself, and I'm only a couple of hours into it. Here's my
thoughts on it so far, I'm 6 chapters in, just before I have to choose my
route:
- Phoenix difficulty option heck, yeah! FE is not the game I enjoy being too
punishing. It's the reason I can't play the older titles at all, I hate
restarting battles 2 billion times so my characters don't die.
- The customizing menu is awful. If you're gonna present us with a traditional
menu at the end of the process, why bother with the gimmicky and less effective
version in the first place?
- Game, the 3DS has a bottom screen. It'd be nice if you could use it to give
us some descriptions about the classes, strengths and weaknesses. Most are
obvious, but what is the difference between "sickly" and
"fragile" for example? What bonuses does "dragon" give?
- Man, 5 seconds in and I already don't like Takumi. Which means the Nohrian
path, that has him as the main villain, is gonna suuucckkk. But on the other
hand, I feel no connection to the Hoshido family, and I definitely don’t wanna
help jerk Takumi. Birthright is easier than Conquest, but what if I find
Birthright so boring I never wanna go back and do the other routes? And the
phoenix difficulty could make conquest easy anyway…but what if I then never
chose Hoshido at all, should I just get it out of the way even though it will
probably be boring? Ugh, I don’t know what to choose!!
- The story feels much more immersive compared to awakening. The cutscenes
using the 3d models are actually done well. Other than the fact that the PC
sleeps in full armor that is.
- That said, I don't like how the story is being presented. For a game that is
supposed to represent duality, it leads heavily into "Hoshido is the
bestest most peaceful country ever, and while Nohr may have good people, it's
still inferior and evil compared to Hoshido". Given that Hoshiso=Japan and
Nohr=Europe, that does not sit well with me at all. I foresee many things about
the plot irking me to no end. Also the pacing so far feels extremely rushed,
much worse than the pace in Awakening.
- The dragon veils are a very nice addition to the combat.
- I like that the weapon weakness/advantage system now has a colour scheme to
go with it.
- Lilith is very cute, I like her a lot. And I have a terrible feeling about
her fate, she's too precious to be left alone. Be honest with me, is she going
to die? And in a terrible way?
Btw, other than having trouble picking my route, I’m also having trouble
picking my husbands. I've been thinking of marrying the PC's most loyal men in
my playhroughs, because I'm weak to devoted men. I already like Jakob and I
have a good impression of Kaze from your own playthrough. But I'm doubtful over
Silas, who I haven’t met yet, and think maybe I should marry Leo or Xander
instead in the Nohr route (Kaze is for Hoshido, Jakob is for revelations). You
married him to someone in your playthrough, how was he as a husband?
Though knowing me, I’ll probably grow attached to my first husband and be
unable to pick anyone else in other routes. It’s what happened in Awakening,
though it didn’t help that that game forced Chrom to marry and I didn’t like
any of his other wives (with him that is). At least in this game, I can keep my
previous lovers unmarried, but still. This makes my route choice even more
important, and the chapters were so short I couldn’t get attached to anyone
yet! I get that the games wanted to get to the branching point fast, but how am
supposed to choose with so little info and context?
After spending
the last hour thinking about which route to choose, I decided to spoil myself a
bit on the story (I really never care about spoilers, it doesn't affect my
enjoyment) and now I don't wanna play neither Birthright OR Conquest. I mean,
what's the point really? Everyone knows that the Revelations path is the canon
and most fulfilling one, even without spoilers. Why the heck should I go
through 2 clearly wrong paths that not only will not give me all the answers to
the plot, but will be filled with deaths (a cheap way to bring emotion into a
story) and pointless conflicts that could be avoided and will make me rage?
The more I think about it, the less point I see to this being split into 3
stories. It just doesn't have enough nuance to be able to work. In most SMT
games, the three paths work because none of them are truly the right option, a
lot of people die in every path and each path has different consequences to the
player. It truly is up to the player's morality to decide with path is the best,
but none of them truly are the best in the long run, not even neutral. Now that
is how you make a good game with multiple paths. Fates doesn't work because
revelations is clearly the right path, it gives the most answers, makes the
most people happy and ends with the most characters alive. There's no point in
playing the other paths unless you want to torture yourself with a weaker plot
and character killing. And I hate killing other characters. I don't want to
have to kill half the cast in these 2 routes, no story is worth that, there's
no point.
Well, no point besides getting your money's worth. But the plot really, really
doesn't work, and it makes Conquest and Birthright feel worthless compared to
birthright. Nintendo should have not split the game in 3, it was a weak way to
make more money at the cost of fan's enjoyment. Ugh, and since I paid for the
"3" games, I feel I should play all routes, but at the same time I
KNOW I won't enjoy them and will want to drop the game.
Gee, I just
found these massive comments of yours by happenstance! Guess I should check
older posts more often. ^^
To answer your question regarding Silas, I'd say he's good husband material.
Despite being a bit dubious at first, he's a honest and devoted guy without a
bad done in his body. In fact, maybe I'll pick him up as a husband if I play
Conquest or Revelations with a female Corrin.
And yes, a million times yes, the decision to split the game in three was
downright counter-productive and dishonest, and a giant diss to Fire Emblem
fans and collectors. It still boggles my mind that Nintendo managed to get a
free pass regarding that whole swindle and that no reviewer pointed out the
fact that Birthright and Conquest are basically unfinished games and thus
complete rip-offs. In the end, the so-called "Collector Edition" I
own, with all three games on a single cartridge, is the genuine comprehensive
version of Fates. The game should have been sold that way with a price tag of
40 to 50€, period.
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