#Black Eagles was a bit of an improvement iirc

[madillhethen]

Might come off as an unpopular opinion (I think I say this a lot about my thoughts/opinions it’s probably self-depreciating.) but everyone is making a big deal of Byleth being the enemy in FE:3Hopes and honestly….I could care less.

I was never attached to Byleth, same with the traveler in Genshin, same with Guda in FGO. The idea is that they’re player insert, the ideas of options is just for player agency but it doesn’t actually affect anything. The characters themselves don’t have an impact as a character, they have little background and zero personality besides a default somewhat ‘caring and more somber personality’ and the typical ‘sassy, type of attitude one’. More than once Paimon and Sothis comes off more as mouthpieces than anything. And if I look at it in this perspective—replacing the player with any other character or removing them entirely wouldn’t change the story. Which to me is a bad take for a ‘character’ because they’re not characters. They’re the player.

But you know what? Link, Joker and Yu are some silent protagonist that have options in game, but they feel like characters to me. Their options were based on a specific type of aspects they could have. You can’t replace Joker and expect the game to be the same.

The one time Byleth even mattered as a character is when their dad died but then they reverted back to a window for the player. On top of playing FE3H a lot of people told me it was better than Awakening, and yes, it made way more improvements, humanized and expanded on characterization but for me it took a step back from the protagonist. I still think Robin was done better than Byleth. Byleth felt like Vaan to me from FFXII where the essential role as protagonist was pretty much useless to the grand scheme of the plot.

I’m pretty sure 3H made some bs or another about Byleth’s heartlessness or lack of emotions but I don’t know, it felt cheap to me. Maybe I need to replay it, maybe the Ashen Wolves will explain more.