#which is one of the most important games in the franchise storywise

[resizura]

listen i’m not saying that old resident evil was peak female rep and without its faults but its so sad to me seeing how quickly the female characters in the franchise got sidelined or fell to tropes

[kshaar]

This is a well-articulated perspective and I agree with a lot of what you said, OP. Also, it made me realize why I disagree on the points that I do, so rambly thoughts below. I hope that's okay.

Yes, Aloy compares their positions over and over again, but I never thought we're meant to believe that Seyka's an outcast.

I looked at most of the things you talked about-- Seyka talking about how she loves her tribe, she is one of the "chosen people" and she "won't abandon ship when it gets rough", "belonging is a kind of strength, you can't cast it aside", how after every single mission she wants to go back and report to the Admiral, at the end of the DLC we try to ensure they'll take her back-- and I came to the conclusion that Aloy is wrong.

I thought the story we're being told is that Aloy is naive, this is her first time falling for someone, she fell too fast, and she's kinda seeing what she wants to see. I mean she literally calls her "not like other Quen"! Now, if this was actually the intention (I could definitely be wrong), I think they could have done a better job, and not just based on the reactions we're seeing.

You compared Seyka's story to the others having conflicts with their own people that we were shown, and how they all were very vocal in disagreeing with what the status quo is. Even going back to a minor character like Ikrie from Frozen Wilds, people in this franchise who disagree with their customs are never shy about speaking it out loud. You talked about Kotallo, Zo, Talanah, and Aloy-- I'm going to bring in Alva. Alva is The representative "Good Quen" to us in the base game. Her story arc is about questioning beliefs-- both "the ancestors", and her own people. She evolves into someone who is not scared of them or the truth, and we know for sure over all the time we spend with her that she believes the Quen are wrong.

From a Doylist perspective, you can't have the same story for two companion-esque characters, that'd be silly. But Seyka didn't have to go through that character development with Aloy. Indeed, we see that there are sparks of rebellion among the Quen at Fleet's End. If they wanted to show us that Seyka believed the Quen were doing something wrong, she could have been one of those people. And if she'd reached that point on her own, she truly would be comparable to Aloy in the ways that Aloy thinks.

But Seyka is decidedly separate from any of that. We see the thing with the Compliance Officers, she talks about the complaints about her, she says she doesn't . We see she's strong-minded and willing to think on her own to do what needs to be done even if it is "forbidden". (sidenote: op, until i read your essay i never got why people thought a literal outcast girl and a girl who has her community embedded in her character were similar. You're right, aloy + tribe could have been like seyka) But Seyka NEVER says the Quen are wrong. She never talks about changing them, or anything like that, either.

She genuinely believes in the Empire, in the Quen. The conclusion of the DLC no matter which option you chose is "we will part ways now". She might be punished or rewarded for her role in the Burning Shores (maybe both), but she remains a Quen's Quen. And I saw this as a set up the conflict for the next game. I think the Quen will play an important part in the present-day politics plot in H3, and when Seyka shows up (and I think she will), they'll have that to deal with. It will also be an interesting parallel storywise to the Lis-Tilda conflict, and I, for one, am looking forward to it.

A big issue with Seyka’s character arc in Burning Shores...

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[kaleidographia]

[Review] Tales of Vesperia: The Brightest Star in the Night Sky Doesn't Shine as Strongly as I'd Hoped

Warning: Contains allusive/thematic spoilers.

The day is finally here! Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition, containing content previously unseen outside of Japan, has finally been released, so that us English speakers and/or non-PS3 owners can experience the new storylines, characters and features for the first time! Alas, this isn’t a post about that, firstly because this post is going up day-of-release and I haven’t had a chance to play it yet, and secondly because I am writing this from outside of the country and won’t be united with my pre-ordered copy until I return next week, RIP.

Therefore, this post is written from the point of view of someone who has only played the Xbox 360 version. I will try to keep it brief for the sake of not spoiling newcomers to the game, and also hopefully not to complain about things that are fixed (or broken??) in the Definitive Edition.

Tales of Vesperia is a game in the long-running “Tales of” franchise from Bandai Namco, the first one in HD, originally released for the Xbox 360 in 2008, later receiving an updated PS3 version in 2009, exclusive to Japan. Like many older fans, my introduction to the Tales of series was with Tales of Symphonia for the Gamecube, and I fell in love hard; I was therefore extremely excited to play the next games, but unfortunately, I never owned the platforms for them until very recently. Along with Tales of the Abyss, Vesperia and Symphonia form the “holy trinity” of games in the series almost everyone loves; find a Tales fan and ask them their favourite game, and the answer will likely be one of those three (note: I’ve heard very good things about Graces and the two Xillia games, but unfortunately haven’t had a chance to judge them firsthand myself). The three games, while not directly related in terms of plot or setting, share a lot of things in common, as they had mostly the same creative team, often referred to as “Team Symphonia” (as opposed to “Team Destiny” which made most other games since then). One notable difference is the scenario writer, Takashi Hasegawa, while Symphonia and Abyss were written by Takumi Miyajima.

The Tales series is known for its reliance on anime and JRPG tropes, often used in a way that plays off cliché expectations only to then layer plot twists and character development and produce a much deeper experience than what would be expected from the get-go. When used effectively, these methods produce a story that is both fun and emotionally challenging. Tales of Vesperia is no different, offering a cast of archetypes that should be highly recognizable to those familiar with the genre, and yet this may be best set of characters in a Tales game. The party has impressively good banter, chemistry and dynamics and several scenes had me laughing out loud or yelling, and I never had a bad time watching their relationships unfold.

Unfortunately, the game spares little time fleshing out backstories or learning more about each individual character outside of the main plot. By the end, I was left wanting, as the cast was so endearing and vibrant, yet I knew next to nothing about them aside from what had been relevant to show onscreen. I longed for more information about where they had come from and how they had gotten where they were, but it is a testament to the strength of the character writing that their storylines reached a satisfying conclusion despite this relative sparse amount of information about them. “Backstory is not story”, Craig McCracken and Frank Angones were fond of saying to fans of Wander Over Yonder, but for a game with the size and scope of a 60-hour JRPG, not providing that window of information feels like a hole in the worldbuilding.

Mechanically, Vesperia builds on the model established by Symphonia and refined in Abyss, where combat takes place in a 3D arena and the player can run around, hit enemies and rack up combos fighting game style (the franchise calls this “Linear Motion Battle System”). While Symphonia was in 3D, it restricted the player to a single side-to-side corridor of action. Abyss added the ability to run around in 3D space by holding down a button, a feature Vesperia also has. This makes combat easier and more fun, as nothing is quite as satisfying as avoiding an attack and then running around and hitting the enemy from behind. And, as the game allows up to four players controlling different party members, and I have a player 2 (shoutout to my roommate Opal), Vesperia’s system is the most well-suited to multiplayer. If nothing else, I never felt lost while on the battlefield yelling for backup. The one major flaw is that boss fights come with massive difficulty spikes and I often had to grind and formulate careful battle plans with Opal just to not get continuously massacred by bosses.

Storywise, Vesperia starts off very strongly, sort of peters out near the middle, and then the third act falls apart. At first the theme is anti-authority, with a protagonist who grew up in the slums, neglected by nobles, who became a knight and then quit out of disillusionment when it turned out all they did was squabble about politics, and the inciting incident and early driver of the plot is his quest to “fix the plumbing” as a popular Tumblr text post put it. It’s clear Yuri has all the reason in the world to not trust authority and he even goes full vigilante against unjust abuse of power, but while this thread seems like the most important theme in the story, after a while so many other elements come into play it ends up lost and doesn’t really make much of an appearance except to highlight the differences between Yuri and Flynn’s approaches to life and how they prefer to help people. On its own it’s a compelling idea, but it never gets the follow-through it deserves, and my expectations were certainly subverted—but in a bad way.

It’s hard to talk about the third act without spoilers so I will probably come back to it for a proper analysis at a later date, but its ultimate message was already kind of limp in 2008 and is even more laughable now. For a game whose initial premise was so strongly against authority, the ultimate resolution of the main conflict reads as incredibly daft in light of just about everything that is happening in politics at the moment. There’s a very strong environmental allegory and the comparisons to climate change are not subtle, but the writers probably bit off more than they could chew because realistically trying to solve this problem in the time the story allotted would have been next to impossible; I still would have hoped the implications of the given solution had been actually explored instead of settling for an “oh well, guess everything’s been fixed now”.

I’m being harsh about the plot because to me Vesperia has a lot of wasted potential. Don’t get me wrong: I do love this game. It is in fact up there with the holy trinity as far as my opinions of the series go, but it lands in third place out of the three because it just fails to live up to what its first half promises about the world it created. To put it bluntly, if the story had just ended at the conclusion of the second act, it would have been much stronger. That the game continues for another 20 hours on a completely different track with an unsatisfying, unrealistic conclusion is a huge shame because it brings down what could have been a real masterpiece of tropey anime JRPG narratives. I live for that stuff, there’s a reason I want to play every Tales game, but that’s what makes this letdown the most disappointing. At least the characters themselves get good conclusions; it is unfortunate I can’t say the same for the main plot.

Despite all this I think Vesperia is a worthwhile experience, and one of my favourite things about is its aesthetic sense. Every location is immersive, polished, and the pinnacle of what I want to see in a videogame, to the point I dream of Symphonia and Abyss remakes made in the same style (and every other game in the series, to be honest, but that seems unlikely with the direction it’s taken since then). I genuinely cared about the party and I wanted to see them succeed and I was ultimately happy that they did even if I did roll my eyes a lot. The combat was so satisfying and so fun to play with a player 2 it makes me twice as mad that Zestiria’s camera goes completely wild during multiplayer and prevents me from joining in. I should note that for someone who plays as many games as I do I am notoriously terrible at them so I heavily favour story over mechanics, but Vesperia is a game that reminds me that engaging gameplay can make a huge difference. Yeah, I suck, but at least I’m having fun while sucking. That’s more than I can say for a lot of games.

If you like JRPGs, games that let you run around and hit things, or fun and intriguing character dynamics, you’ll probably like Tales of Vesperia. If you’re looking for a coherent story from start to finish, you’ll probably disappointed, but there’s just enough there to keep you engrossed until the end. Overall, Vesperia is solid, and the parts it fumbles aren’t bad enough to ruin the whole thing, but hopefully the extra content in Definitive Edition helps to smooth it out; I’ll have to find that out for myself.

Aside from how it messes up the voice acting this time around. Oh, Bamco.

[thesummonerofaskr]

Salt 3: Fire Emblem Fates, the Story

Post under the read more

I decided to go ahead and make this since I am currently sick, agitated, and ready to rant about something. I've poked fun at Fates' narrative or outright insulted it before, but I've never said anything about why it's bad. Why is that? Well that would probably be because most Fire Emblem fans are expected to hate Fates' story at this point and so saying that you hate it is just a given. But you know what? I can do better then that. I've done it twice already, so why not? Now to be fair, I will admit I'm a bit spoiled. My first Fire Emblem game was Path of Radiance, a Fire Emblem game considered to have one of the best stories in the series this side of Genealogy of the Holy War. So when I went in and played Awakening, with its fun-yet-busted gameplay and yet still flawed narrative, I was slightly disappointed. I still love Awakening and how it helped save the series, but I'm not above saying it could've been better. Still, when Fates, or rather "if," was announced, I couldn't help but fall in love with the premise. Two families, two different storylines, and a choice to make on which side you would follow? The ability to customize your own personal fortress? It sounded like a dream come true. But then the game to the States and... it crushed sales. You know why Fates gets all the seasonal units in Heroes alongside Awakening? It's because those games sold well, so of course they're going to get more attention whether we like it or not. However, Fates did disappoint... a lot... with the execution of its narrative. I feel like we all convinced ourselves that this was going to be the best game ever only to get something sub-par, which to the hyped up fan can end up being the worst thing ever. Where did Fates fail and how can it be improved? Well that's what I'd like to explore.

Prologue: If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It

Fates may not have been the best game in the world, but it certainly wasn't the worst. If you ask some people in the fandom about Fates, they'll get onto their high horse and tell you that everything about Fates was horrible, there wasn't a single redeeming factor, and it single-handedly ruined the entire franchise to such a degree that it took Echoes being made to save it. (And if I ever get around to beating Echoes, I'm sure I could make a rant on how little fun I've been having with it, to the point where I can't beat it.) Those people are... exaggerating. So before we jump into the negativity, I'll offer some positives. For starters, much as with Awakening, I found myself getting attached to a good majority of the characters. Sure there were exceptions (Niles and Hayato), but there always are and that doesn't necessarily make the characters bad for the purpose they were created. Secondly, the village customization was everything I hoped it would be. Yes, I did enjoy playing around with the My Castle feature. I've always been a bit of a world builder, driving my interest in RTS games like Age of Empires and the original Warcraft, and even a small little thing like this got me thinking on how to make my castle pretty. Gameplay mechanics introduced in Awakening were fixed. Pair Up mechanics were no longer broken and allowed you to be more strategic regarding both offensive and defensive measure. Archers and Knights were made not only useful, but amazing, and so characters you wouldn't have used in other games suddenly becomes amazing in this one. Personal skills now exist and even a few of those aforementioned people will turn around and say they would bring personal skills back for future installments. The music... why would people even hate the soundtrack? It was absolutely beautiful. As a sucker for both Japanese and Celtic music, I can certainly say there was not a track in this game that I despised. And I know that some people like how battles get their own music in other games before Awakening, but I've never been fond of that. It feels like I don't get to hear enough of the music in game before it switches over to Battle and back, again and again, until the Enemy Phase... Thanks Echoes. Also, dagger weapons... I hope those return next game to be honest. I don't expect there to be a duality like in Fates, but I do hope there's at least some manner of throwing debuff weapon.

Perhaps this wasn't the most eloquently written paragraph in the history of the world, but I did want to at least start off on a high note... now let's delve into the topic at hand, shall we?

Chapter 1: Pre-Determined Destiny

One of the first issues with Fire Emblem Fates was how it was advertised versus how it was shipped. One of the things we saw leading up to the game's release was how there was going to be a choice between which side you wanted to affiliate with. Would you stand with your blood family, the Kingdom or Hoshido, or the family that raised you, the Kingdom of Nohr? It was a question that actually got a lot of people both excited and competetive, a light battle that I'd only seen in the Warcraft fandom, though not nearly as tense and hostile as Alliance vs. Horde to be fair. But then tragedy immediately struck when it was revealed that to make your choice, you had to purchase the right game for it, split between Birthright and Conquest. That's one hell of a way to make this seeming question lose its meaning. The first five chapters are spent introducing you to both Nohr and Hoshido and by Chapter 6 you're supposed to make your decision based on what you know and how you feel, but that will only work if you had purchased the Special Edition of Fates or, more realistically, if you'd ended up paying the extra $20 to put the other side on your 3DS digitally. Otherwise you'll end up with a 50% chance on whether you now want to side with the kingdom you bought ther version for still or if you'll end up like "wait no I actually want to side with the others," but you can't because this is the version of the game you paid for, kiddo.

It stank of greed to a lot of people and there were even comparisons made to Pokemon as a result. Now to be fair, these comparisons are still completely incorrect. Birthright and Conquest, and the third story released later in Revelations, do in fact tell different stories. There's more major differences in the narrative then which units you get. But it overall came up to $80 in total. Couldn't you have just put Birthright and Conquest on the same cartridge and then made Revelations cost $40 on its own then? Well no, that still would've pissed people off and for good reason. I feel bad for cartridge owners who wanted the game. I heard there was a way to get both on cartridge for $60, but I bought all my Fates content digitally, so I cannot confirm. There's no real way to improve this because it was on Nintendo's marketing for giving the illusion that the choice came in game, not immediately based on version.

Chapter 2: The Avatar of Salt

Honestly self-insert characters are the worst. In a game like The Legend of Zelda, it works because the story takes a backseat to gameplay and Link doesn't need to be anything more then the silent hero who will save the day and bring peace to Hyrule no matter what the challenges are that come to test him. Fire Emblem doesn't get that luxury. Being a tactical RPG that weaves both story and gameplay together as important as the other, it needs characters that can serve to further the narrative while still being interesting and enjoyable. None should be more so then the main character of the game, especially if they're a major talker in the story. RPGs like Suikoden and Persona can get away with not having the main character say much because the focus goes into secondary characters more so then the primary one and so you can enjoy them more extensively, watching them interact amongst each other as well, but Fire Emblem doesn't often bring secondary characters into the main narrative and usually reserves their development and storyline importance for supports to look into. Awakening and Fates are especially guilty of this, with the former utilizing mainly Chrom, the Avatar, Frederick, and Lissa over anyone else. In Fates, it would be the Avatar, Azura, and the royals. So it is important that these characters at least be able to carry the story well enough and... they don't always. But Awakening gets some leeway in that its self insert Robin, while plot integral enough to be a flaw on Awakening's story, is not the main character. That would actually be Chrom. Fates' Avatar, Corrin, serves as both the self insert... and the main character. It goes about as well as you expect.

Many consider Corrin to be the worst lord in the series, more so then even Roy, Eliwood, and Gaiden!Alm before Echoes turned him into a good boy. A lot of this is because of how static Corrin is. In the first five chapters, Corrin is given some leeway because they are still sheltered and naive. They were raised by the Nohrian royals, who are not complete monsters like their father, and so of course they would be horrified at the thought of executing prisoners for fun. After being kidnapped by Hoshido and shown around, they would of course expect to die, be confused by their circumstances, and only after a horrific traumatic effect bringing back their memories ends up disturbed by what happened to them. These five chapters were better storywise then the rest of the game by far because after choosing their side and going through an admittedly heartfelt battle... they seem to just settle in and end up a static character. Whether it's the justified avenger in Birthright or the suffering deceiver in Conquest, they never really show any change in their character. There's no major development for them as they have to stay in a certain role that is easy to insert themself into, even though in some cases they also fail in this.

Revelations is the worst in this regard. Corrin keeps their naivete to the very end. This gets them into a lot of trouble with a certain character who ends up betraying the group, yet this behavior is never called out on. In fact, their overtrusting nature is commended and encouraged, which I suppose is natural considering the fact that they were manipulated by both Hoshido and Nohr in their own right. Obviously Nohr was manipulating Corrin into believe they were of Nohrian decent, but Hoshido, or rather... only Ryoma, never bothered to let Corrin know the truth that they were adopted. I suppose they would want Corrin to remain the same way. It gives them further leeway over Corrin in the future.

I know there are people who like Corrin the way they are, especially the female Corrin, though how much of that is between her looks and the fact that one out of all six voices has the best performance in Chapter 5's cutscene and it's her default voice I don't know, but if I had to change the story without removing Corrin in order to preserve the original premise of choosing one of your two families, I would definitely have Corrin "mature" throughout each path in a different way. In Birthright, I would have them start off as bitter towards Garon for what happened to Mikoto, but still not hating Nohr and so being angry at characters like Hinoka, Takumi, and Oboro for their constant racist tendencies. As they progress, however, they see what Nohr has done to their people and so they feel that Nohr would be much more prosperous under Hoshidan rule. On the other side, Conquest's Corrin would still want to change Nohr from the inside and that would be the ultimate goal regardless, but going into Hoshido, they would notice all of these goods, all this food and luxury, that Hoshido's been hoarding to itself. They might think conquering Hoshido would be good for Nohr in more ways then one and so feel less sympathetic when going through the battles. Revelations' Corrin is such an enigma that I feel like the game would need to be drawn out longer to justify everything that happened in it. Corrin gets both families working together half way in, so I guess they would feel that being the same would work out. I guess you can't win them all.

Chapter 3: Black and White, for what is Gray and Grey?

Whenever you play a Fire Emblem game, you usually see multiple perspectives. The enemy's side has good people in it and so you might be inclined to sympathize with them to a degree while the good guys still have to deal with issues of internal corruption and strife. Tellius did a good job with this as there were people within Daein who could not stand Ashnard's rule despite being forced to follow him, such as Jill's father, while Begnion had its internal corruption in spades between the massive racism against Laguz that allowed slave trafficking to progress as far as it did, especially in the hands of senators like Oliver. Radiant Dawn furthered this by having Daein in such a state of suffering to Begnion after the war in the first game that our heroine Micaiah is leading a revolution within. Even Awakening did this to a small degree in its first third with the character Mustafa, a Plegian general who had been touched by Emmeryn's words after her death, offered to shelter Chrom and the Ylisseans if they surrendered, and who allowed his men to leave if they so desired because of how hard they found it to fight with the knowledge of what they'd done, though none of them ended up leaving after his compassion and so chose to fight and die for him.

You'd think with Fates' premise, it would be the perfect Gray on Grey story, with both Hoshido and Nohr having its goods and bads. Unfortunately that is not the case. In many aspects, it looks incredibly like Hoshido did nothing wrong and does nothing wrong ever while Nohr is essentially Nazi Germany. Hoshido wanted to stay out of a war. They even have a barrier around the country that makes enemy soldiers lose the will to fight, keeping everything seemingly peaceful. What a bloody MacGuffin that barrier is, but hey, the Nohrians found a way to combat it by calling upon the Faceless, soulless creatures that can rampage villages even in the barriers, though they are so monstrous they can even kill the mages that summoned them if not properly controlled. I wonder who the baddies are in this situation.

For starters, Hoshdio's food hoarding needs to be addressed by the Nohrian royals as a reason for Nohr to invade. Nohr's conditions as a practically barren wasteland where food cannot easily grow also needs to be brought up. Hoshido also needs an equivalent to Hans and Iago. Some might point out Kotaro, but he is not actually a part of Hoshido and so does not count. Even if they cannot be as bad as the aforementioned two, they need to be a driving force of antagonism that can make Hoshido at least look less then perfect. Perhaps their racism against Nohrians can make Oboro look like an equal opportunist. Or maybe they act nice on the outside, but are secretly plotting to usurp Mikoto and take the throne for themselves. Speaking of which...

Chapter 4: The Father, the Mother, and the Holy Spirit

What are the similarities between Mikoto and Garon? You might say that there is no simlarity, that both could not be more different in any single manner. But after Chapter 5 and in Revelations, there are two simlarities between the two. They also share these simlarities with Sumeragi. Both are dead and possessed by Anankos. This causes Mikoto be removed from the story and it is the reason why Garon is an old tyrannical cunt more one-dimensional then the inability to conceive the horizontal and vertical. These characters are nothing more then wasted potential. The former gives Corrin their memories of Hoshido back with her death and the latter is a walking giant with a sign pointing at him in neon letters saying "I'm basically Ivan the Terrible in Fire Emblem!" Certainly there must be ways to make better use of them, yes?

The first step is avoiding that anime urge to kill off Mikoto. That's right... don't have her die. Instead, let her remain the driving force for Hoshido as she is injured so much she cannot keep the barrier up, but otherwise remains alive. You might argue that this wouldn't be fair to Nohr as Garon is already the way he is and that it goes against the pre-determined ending of both Ryoma and Xander being made the kings of each country respectively, but it would also allow us to build up Mikoto more then just this "perfect messiah" figure in a similar vein to Emmeryn and maybe even make her more memorable as a character. Now in Revelations, she might get killed and brought back just because it is what it is in that damn story, but in Birthright, there's a chance for her to grow as a leader when she learns of how Nohr has been suffering and so does not hesitate in offering diplomacy when Leo is instated as King. In Conquest, we could see her being the driving force for Ryoma to be as uncharacteristically desperate to get Corrin back as he turns out to be, encouraging him to do whatever it takes, even if it means forsaking his honor. Sounds rather ruthless, I know, but hell hath no fury like a mother scorned after all.

But what about Garon? Well Garon's issue is that he has no traits outside of being evil. What he used to be like is all told in supports. And we all know that "show, don't tell" is the golden rule of writing, so why is Garon nothing but evil when an Anankos possessed Mikoto is able to act kind and loving? My proposal is that Garon is shown to have a more loving side. For instance, what if he actually expressed happiness that Azura was brought back as opposed to... brushing her off? It would be heavily out of character to how we know him now, but it would definitely fit the descriptions of him as a loving father we've been told by Xander, Camilla, and Leo. It would also make putting him down all the more sad in Conquest when we're revealed to his true form, building onto the whole "tragedy" feel that it's supposed to have all the way through as opposed to this cathartic break until possessed Takumi. "But then why would he be evil? Why would he want to conquer Hoshido?" If diplomacy failed and Garon was pushed to that point in life, he might've kept his new perspective on conquering in death. He has men like Hans and Iago around to give him the results he needs and they could be seen as the ones manipulating him into doing evil, except Corrin and Azura know the truth thanks to that crystal ball. All I'm saying is that making Garon less of a twat would give Nohr that push it needs to be more reasonable a pick. As opposed to picking it because your brothers are hot... oh, and about that...

Chapter 5: Genealogy of the Holy Fate

And now the Jugdral fans will tear me apart for that joke. Time to jump into the triggering topic of incest. Now I'm going to go ahead and make this section mercifully short, even if it still requires a trigger warning, but what I am going to say is that these supports were an utter mistake. For starters, on Hoshido's side, you initially believe you're blood related to them. Why is Mikoto writing letters to everyone but Ryoma on the off chance that they fall in love with their middle sibling? What kind of mother does that? That's just stupid. And even though Ryoma knows the truth, he should still see Corrin as a sister regardless. They're in-laws. Are you kidding me? On the Nohrian side of things, they may not have ever been blood related, but Corrin was raised there for so long that them developing any feelings for the Nohrian siblings is even closer to developing feelings for an actual brother and sister then it would be for Hoshido's side.

It's amazing that the actual incestuous couple is more understandable then the pseudo-ones. Corrin and Azura together were a very popular pair when they were first revealed in the same vein of Chrom and Robin being a popular pair. Two main characters, very close together, it all ends up working out in that manner. The problem is that Revelations drops in one line something that isn't stated in any support conversations, world building lines, or any part of the story apart from that one line, that one sentence of dialogue from a dying Mikoto that killed an entire ship. "Azura's mother and I are sisters." Corrin and Azura barely knew each other as they were raised in entirely different kingdoms. They were perfect strangers until Mikoto stated this. Now they're first cousins and so the once beloved ship is so problematic that your previous posts praising it are probably getting you anon hate even now unless you delete them.

The solution to this is obvious. Remove the ability to S-Rank them. Add in a few more characters if you need to, but no more Azzurrin, Corriander, Corryoma, Camillin, Hinokin, Takurrin, Correo, Sakurrin, and Corrlise... no more weird ship names in general to be honest.

Chapter 6: We Must Go Deeper

I love the children units of Genealogy and Awakening. I feel they bring in some neat personalities in the latter's case and in the former's case continue the story in a way that was never done before. However, Fates' case is... horrible. Just simply horrible. In an attempt to recapture some of the glory from Awakening's use of the children, without understanding why it worked in Awakening the way it did, the children units in Fates are literally child soldiers aged up to a proper age in Fates' equivalent of Hyperbolic Time Chambers. Sure they weren't intended to be, either in-universe or from the perspective of the writers, but that's sure what they look like when their presence is entirely optional, has no bearing on the stories whatsoever, and their existence is justified with one of the worst concepts I ever seen... the Deeprealms.

The Deeprealms as a construct are disgusting and unncessary. Their existence and the unit's use of them is actually harmful to the likeability of every single character in the game. They essentially place their own children in these pocket dimensions to be raised away from the horrors of their war without considering the ramifications of doing such a thing. It worked in Genealogy because they had no parallel dimensions to store their children in, having them sent to other lands away from where the fighting would be and them only growing after years of development proper. It worked in Awakening because the kids came from the future and so had already been through a world without their parents because of how Awakening's story functions. In Fates, however, they tried to combine the two and what we get are children who grow up with abandonment issues because that's essentially what their parents did. They abandoned the kids in worlds that have time streams that run slower then "the real world's" and caused them to age exponentially quicker from their perspective as a result. From this, we get Rhajat being older then her own father, Velouria being expected to break away from her parents despite barely getting to spend time with them and becoming obsessive to the point of... see the above chapter, Percy hating his father and considering him a villain, Asugi wanting to escape his identity as the next Saizo, and various other examples. Sure some of the kids continue to love their families like Midori, Soleil, Ophelia, Caeldori, and Selkie, but you'd still have to question if said families deserve it.

As much as we make like these characters, it would overall be better if they did not exist at all. It would cease being a stain on the first gen characters. If they had to exist, there could be DLC for them as opposed to them being in the base game.

Chapter 7: The Vallite Expedition

Valla's story is the worst story of the three. Conquest can still be enjoyable. Birthright is cliche, but simple. Revelations, however, is a story that utterly suffers from its incompetence. The characters are all swift to join Corrin's side due to the "chapter limit" that the games consistently hold themselves to, the Hoshidan and Nohrian conflict is explained to be the machinations of a bigger threat to life itself, and everything that we know from the previous two games no longer manages to be an issue because now there's something bigger we can blame. Revelations is to Fates what the end of Mists of Pandaria was to Warcraft and Anankos is essentially this game's Garrosh Hellscream. Why even worry about moral relativity, economic issues, and the bonds of family when it was all a dragon's fault?

Valla boasts bad writing from beginning to end and culminates in an asspull of epic proportions. It's true you see Anankos name dropped in Conquest, as well as get to see Valla proper, but neither of these needed to really be in the game. Anankos didn't need to be a thing. And if he did, then he needed more development or needed to be mentioned by Garon more. After all, Anankos is a very important character. He's Corrin's father for fuck's sake. Sadly Valla couldn't get any world building at all though because of a coincidental curse that kills anyone who name drops it. Really makes building it up into a proper threat difficult, doesn't it? It's a world you can't talk about unless you go there. So when you go there, you have no idea what to make of it because you've never heard about it before. And then you can't tell your friends or family about it because it'll kill you if you do, which means Corrin has to convince a bunch of people to jump into a bottomless canyon without name dropping it, except they're totally prepared to name drop it and die... only for said people to say they'll trust Corrin entirely.

Between that, Corrin being encouraged to remain trusting to the point of insanity, Anthony existing, the sentence that made a popular ship incestuous... I'm not sure there's even a way to save Valla. It pisses all over the premise that got people excited for Fates to begin with, that these two families who have good reasons for going to war want you to join only one of them to fight the other. Why do that when you can have both and fight against a big evil dragon?

ENDGAME: The Path is filled with Legos

I am by no means a professional writer. I've considered multiple ways to salvage Fire Emblem Fates' story. I've seen people say there is no way to salvage it and that it should burn. I've seen people state the only way to save it is to remove Corrin from it and make it more like Radiant Dawn with the two kingdoms being playable and having their own tales. I've seen people state the game is fine as it is already and that not too many changes need to made except removing the Deeprealms. I've seen people not mess with the story and only mention how much they hate the weapons now that they're unbreakable thanks to the stat issues on them. Fates is a game with many opinions on it because of how controversial it is. I suppose one could argue that this is a good thing. Fates will always have people talking about it. Even if it's mostly critique and anger, it's still publicity that'll get people looking at it. And if they find that they do in fact like what they see, that's another Fates fan added to the pool, which is not a bad thing.

For better or worse, Awakening saved the franchise and Fates made it popular. You can argue that this sucks because the S-Support and children somehow "makes it a dating sim." I take it as another chance, a potential to see more stories utilizing the Fire Emblem formula, and it's not like this salvation turned out to be for the worst. We got Heroes, which is currently going through some turbulent times and yet is still one of the best gacha games made. We got Warriors, which may be surrounded by controversy concerning its roster and yet is still a fun experience. We got Echoes, which I may not have personally enjoyed, but I've seen a lot of people happy for it and stating it has one of the best stories in the franchise. And we have Fire Emblem 16 coming out for the Switch at some point.

Fates' story is... problematic. It's very irritating as you expected a manga writer to do better then what he did. But I suppose if it didn't exist at all, things would've been for the worst. So I still love Fates. I still respect what it did for the series. Just... not enough to not make this post.