#and more disgusting stuff like Vero's retcons to uwu-ize Supreme Leader and sell alts

[randomnameless]

I'm beginning to think there might have been discourse/debate between KT and IS regarding the Fodlan games. We'll never know of course but it would be amusing if that's the case considering how it translated to their audience.

lol

Some people already thought about it, and while Nopes was a heavily marketed/produced product by KT, at the end of the day, even for FE16, IS had to pop in and give a sign of approval.

I think the interview for Engage more or less revealed that while the two games weren't developed together, they were thought of as being wildly different experiences - both in gameplay and story, and while I have my own gripes with Engage's story especially in the last chapters, Engage's big character resolution is

Alear coming to terms with what they were born as, but deciding, nonetheless, to use their power to be and act as the divine dragon Lumera was, aka use their power to do something "good" even if they were born as Sombron's kid thus supposed to do "bad" things.

Compare this with "crust BaD" - nowhere in the Fodlan games is it ever mentionned, by one character who has a crust, that crust is only a power and not inherently bad or good, it's what you decided to do, you as someone who has the opportunity to use this power, who ultimately choose to do the right thing, or the wrong thing.

Hell, it's only when Fodlan met another game (fully developed by IS, for better and worse) that his question is raised, and quickly eluded by Supreme Leader warping away from Lissa, because hey, in an IS game, that question would have been raised, and defaulting to "crusts BaD" has never been the house's recipe to make a game - especially since this specific recipe has been overused, first in FE Jugdral (Loptyr blood isn't inherently evil, that was the teaching Blaggi tried to promote that was later ignored and then forgotten), then, sort of in FE6 (no Fa, divine dragons aren't doomed to become souless war dragon producing machins or humanity's enemies!), in FE13 with Robin and their fell blood, and finally, in FE17.

I think, even if FE16 still sells a lot of alts in FEH and DLC and what not, the lack of side materials and goodies is, imo, telling enough about what IS wants to do with it - FE17 got a manga release on the shonen jump + (i think?) even when the sales are inferior to FE16's (granted, if we compare something that was around for 4 years including 2020 to a game released in January, that's not very fair) - Nopes's DLC was called off and bar FEH milking the Fodlan verse to sell units, imo, IS wants to drop it and move forward.

And while it makes me sad because there are things I'm legit interested in (war of heroes guide like the tellius recollection guide plz), given what "Fodlan" ended up when KT was left (mostly?) alone in the form of Nopes (you effing beat up refugees to steal their gold! Like, we're the red units beating the green npcs, or the bandits burning houses??) - I am less and less sure I want to see more Fodlan content, even if I was pleasantly surprised with the Fodlan content - especially regarding Nabateans who are completely ignored by their source game - IS made up for FEH.

Sure we have some issues that are inherent to FEH's nature as a gacha selling game cajoling units who can sell a lot (Hilda's family never had slaves unfed servants! Syrup just had some adventures in Goneril!) but to the FEH team - from IS - Sothis is more pissed at Agarthans for having genocided her children and turned them into pincushions than for Billy's dad's death.

Hell, for what it's worth, Emblem!Dimitri mentions how much he likes the idea of a world/place without discriminations based on origins or races, something he cannot say in the KT Fodlan games, because it stars Ms "You are a Nabatean, you should not rule over Humans!" as the main character of the game - so it's not a lot, but imo, FEH + FE17 gives us clues as to what IS would have done with the Fodlan cast -

Even if I'm not kidding myself, Hresvelg Tea was always supposed to be the main selling point of that verse, so while I don't think we would have had less uwus, maybe we might have had some sort of "sekrit brainwash" to make Ashnard in an onesie still be marketable for FEH.