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Fire Emblem Fates |OT| Nohr does what Hoshidon't

Male or Female Corrin? About to start Birthright for the first time. Who's "canon"?

(Yes, I know neither really is, but default male Robin was clearly the "canon" one ultimately...)
 

NeonZ

Member
Male or Female Corrin? About to start Birthright for the first time. Who's "canon"?

(Yes, I know neither really is, but default male Robin was clearly the "canon" one ultimately...)

Heirs of Fates goes male Corrin for the Birthright world and Female Corrin for the Conquest world. It's also how the games were marketed in Japan. Besides, what ultimately pushed Male Robin after Awakening was the male Robin Amiibo, which led to him appearing in Codename STEAM, Fates and now Echoes (this last one not as an actual character though, just a transparent phantom summon), with no female Robin around, but this time there's a female Corrin Amiibo too.
 

Apenheul

Member
I've never purchased Fire Emblem DLC before but since I love Fates so much (yes I actually think it's the best FE that ever released in the west) I just purchased the discounted Map Pack 1 and Map Pack 2. Birthright for me was an awesome playground to test unconventional unit-arrangements in, I finished the game with every archer I could get and I loved testing if that strategy could work. Conquest was seriously tough and I after I had lost maybe 10 of my strongest units by chapter 18 I decided to revert to the good old 'if someone dies I immediately reset' strategy. Revelations may have to wait until after I've played through Echoes though, and after that I'll play the Hidden Truths DLC and Fates Map Pack 2.
 
For the record, I wound up going with FemCorrin. The reason? I know this is dumb, but Fire Emblem: Heroes had Male Robin and Female Corrin available day one (the opposite genders for each didn't arrive until later), and that therefore made me feel like she was the "default" Corrin somehow. So here we go!
 
For the record, I wound up going with FemCorrin. The reason? I know this is dumb, but Fire Emblem: Heroes had Male Robin and Female Corrin available day one (the opposite genders for each didn't arrive until later), and that therefore made me feel like she was the "default" Corrin somehow. So here we go!

...male Corrin was also available day 1 in Heroes though
 

Linkark07

Banned
For the record, I wound up going with FemCorrin. The reason? I know this is dumb, but Fire Emblem: Heroes had Male Robin and Female Corrin available day one (the opposite genders for each didn't arrive until later), and that therefore made me feel like she was the "default" Corrin somehow. So here we go!

Well, it is generally agreed male Corrin is the default one for Birthright and female Corrin the default one for Conquest.
 

one_kill

Member
Are both DLC packs recommended? I haven't played Fates yet, but I would like to get the DLC just in case I'd want to play them in the future.
 
About to fire this up. I keep hearing people say Corrin is good as a Ninja or Samurai. Thoughts? I always like my main character to wreck shit and I'm not a big magic fan. I'd love some input.
 

CazTGG

Member
About to fire this up. I keep hearing people say Corrin is good as a Ninja or Samurai. Thoughts? I always like my main character to wreck shit and I'm not a big magic fan. I'd love some input.

Either one's good though if you have the DLC classes as an option, Vanguard or Great Lord are good choices, if only for Aether.
 

Oxx

Member
With Echoes out I thought it was only natural to try and get back into Fates.

Apparently I had made it to chapter 25 of Birthright before quitting.

I fumbled through a couple of chapters as I got back into the rhythm of things, but the Endgame chapter seems overly harsh.
 

Erheller

Member
With Echoes out I thought it was only natural to try and get back into Fates.

Apparently I had made it to chapter 25 of Birthright before quitting.

I fumbled through a couple of chapters as I got back into the rhythm of things, but the Endgame chapter seems overly harsh.

Hex staves work on the final boss. Also, you can one-round him if your units are powerful enough.
 

Oxx

Member
Yikes, I almost botched the Birthright Endgame by forgetting to use the Hex Staff on the first turn.

Luckily I could use Azura's sing to get one more attack in.
 

PK Gaming

Member
Combat is better in Fates
But there is no motivation to endure it

The motivation comes down to how fun the maps are.

The story is garbage, which is why the real story comes from your experiences on a particular map. There's a reason why players refer to chapter 17 as "Ninja Hell" or Chapter 20 as "Fuga's Wild Ride." It's particularly thrilling on higher difficulties as well.
 

Gardios

Member
Reflecting back on these games, are they better combat-wise than Echoes?

Yeah, but it's kind of hard not to be. Bad, repetitive map design(Act 2 of Echoes straight up has you play the same map 3 times in a row), simplistic mechanics and zero objective variety really drag Echoes down in my eyes and makes the act of actually playing the game to be a bit of a chore.

Hopefully, FE Switch will be solid in both the gameplay and story departments.
 

Anura

Member
Reflecting back on these games, are they better combat-wise than Echoes?

Is this even a real question? I've only played up to around the middle of act three and so far it's terrible. Map designs in echos are so bad it's almost funny. I say almost because you still have I play through them. Most are wide flat areas and the ones that aren't have an obvious choke point with a billion brigands/cavaliers/dark mages on the other side. You might occasionally get the odd mountain pass or open field with fortress you have to break into. I hope you like routing too. Unit progression is as basic and uninteresting as it gets with few options for customization. There are no wyvern riders, warriors/berserkers, dark fliers, dark knights/mage knights, troubadours and no thief/ninja type class. Skills come from the weapon you're wielding so there's no mix and matching them like before. As far as I can tell you can use all your units in chapters that aren't dungeons so there's no reason to pick and choose who to raise. There's no weapon triangle or magic triangle. And it doesn't even seem like you can get an axe user!


Edit: To the discussion above. The story so far in this game isn't good enough to warrant slogging through this godawful and boring combat. Heck, some chapters don't even have any meaningful story developments. Some chapters are basically just "there's dudes here, kill them" and that's that!
 

SolVanderlyn

Thanos acquires the fully powered Infinity Gauntlet in The Avengers: Infinity War, but loses when all the superheroes team up together to stop him.
I don't want to see a FE4 remake, the game can't hold my interest as is, I don't need another one of it.

Honestly, I don't want to see any remakes anytime soon. I want new games.
TOO BAD

Replaying this now after playing through Echoes and Awakening (again). Story in Birthright is not nearly as bad as the collective internet consciousness (or at the very least GAF) would have you believe; I think a year of listening to complaints about it sullied my opinion of it. Before I would have called it inoffensive. Now I see it is really no better or worse than any given Fire Emblem story, which are cliche yet fairly entertaining in a typical fantasy romp kind of way, and a notch above the worst, which are Sacred Stones and...

Conquest is bad, yeah. It's interesting how Corrin straight up admits that the only reason he/she sided with Nohr was because they couldn't bring themself to betray their siblings, as if they knew it wasn't the "right" choice to make. This is actually played decently, with Corrin and their siblings constantly on edge and trying to make do with bad situations and a bunch of lunatics in charge. The premise isn't bad at all. The bad comes in when:

-They reinforce that Corrin never kills anyone. EVER. At all. In a war. It's like because this was a Nintendo game that they had to make up for the fact that you were working for a literal monster and sugarcoat it somehow. It ends up diluting the impact of the narrative, and by a lot. Even Birthright doesn't do anything like this. I guess mowing down Nohrians is fine (which is ironic, as the game paints the citizens as relatively innocent people)

-The whole Hoshidan throne business is really convoluted, more so than it needs to be, to the point where it becomes very obvious that it was written as a narrative mechanic to justify invading Hoshido. In fact, all of the later chapters are a prime example of the writer/s wanting to have their cake and eat it too, where you invade a nation of clear cut good guys and are still a clear cut good guy yourself. A little more nuance and moral ambiguity would have fit the premise of the route a lot better.

-Garon is comically evil. I mean, most FE villains are. But when you write a story from this sort of perspective, it would do wonders to add a bit of layer to his character. Maybe show some signs of his old self in there to make it seem like he's not a completely irredeemable monster. They talk about how Garon used to be a good king, so it's not like there's no setup for this. Garon, Iago, and the rest of the Legion of Doom are the primary reason the narrative has so much trouble - a good person like Corrin simply wouldn't stay with these people, who so consistently show absolutely no signs of redemption and make multiple over-the-top evil statements about causing as much pain and suffering as possible, making Corrin seem more stupid than goodhearted.

TL;DR Conquest has an interesting setup and I love the characters and supports, which show the poverty stricken, do-what-must-be-done attitude the main plot should have had. The cast is probably my favorite out of the modern FE games (Awakening, Birthright, Conquest, Echoes). The writing comes across as either lazy or lacking coherence, as if the team creating the story couldn't let go of keeping to the rosy atmosphere of past FE stories even though it was supposed to be a darker and more nuanced path.

Just my two cents. The game itself is still amazing. Loving these maps all over again, especially coming from Echoes.

Addendum: I played as a girl this time. Married Jakob (who is so much nicer to have over Felicia in the beginning - combat and story-wise) in Birthright and got a green haired Dwyer, who I immediately reclassed to a Vanguard. Literally unstoppable. He was like Ike reincarnated, and his model has the perfect hairstyle for that class too. Loved seeing him get buff and wreck people while screaming "I just wanna go home!" when he crit somebody. The reluctant hero prince was much more interesting than he would have been had I left him as he was. He and his father were some of my favorite characters to begin with, so that helped too. Married Silas on Conquest so I could turn my Sophie into the classic green cavalier.
 

NeonZ

Member
The main issue with Birthright's story is that it's far too episodic. It's specially bad in the beginning, when the plotline about searching for Takumi and Ryoma seems really random and it comes right after the beginning of the game, bringing the narrative to a halt.

I don't think it's all bad though. Most individual locations that are featured in the main story (rather than paralogues) have some distinguishing factors, and don't feel like random village/city #14, even if the story doesn't handle the connections between them well.
 

PK Gaming

Member
TOO BAD

Replaying this now after playing through Echoes and Awakening (again). Story in Birthright is not nearly as bad as the collective internet consciousness (or at the very least GAF) would have you believe; I think a year of listening to complaints about it sullied my opinion of it. Before I would have called it inoffensive. Now I see it is really no better or worse than any given Fire Emblem story, which are cliche yet fairly entertaining in a typical fantasy romp kind of way, and a notch above the worst, which are Sacred Stones and...

Conquest is bad, yeah. It's interesting how Corrin straight up admits that the only reason he/she sided with Nohr was because they couldn't bring themself to betray their siblings, as if they knew it wasn't the "right" choice to make. This is actually played decently, with Corrin and their siblings constantly on edge and trying to make do with bad situations and a bunch of lunatics in charge. The premise isn't bad at all. The bad comes in when:

-They reinforce that Corrin never kills anyone. EVER. At all. In a war. It's like because this was a Nintendo game that they had to make up for the fact that you were working for a literal monster and sugarcoat it somehow. It ends up diluting the impact of the narrative, and by a lot. Even Birthright doesn't do anything like this. I guess mowing down Nohrians is fine (which is ironic, as the game paints the citizens as relatively innocent people)

-The whole Hoshidan throne business is really convoluted, more so than it needs to be, to the point where it becomes very obvious that it was written as a narrative mechanic to justify invading Hoshido. In fact, all of the later chapters are a prime example of the writer/s wanting to have their cake and eat it too, where you invade a nation of clear cut good guys and are still a clear cut good guy yourself. A little more nuance and moral ambiguity would have fit the premise of the route a lot better.

-Garon is comically evil. I mean, most FE villains are. But when you write a story from this sort of perspective, it would do wonders to add a bit of layer to his character. Maybe show some signs of his old self in there to make it seem like he's not a completely irredeemable monster. They talk about how Garon used to be a good king, so it's not like there's no setup for this. Garon, Iago, and the rest of the Legion of Doom are the primary reason the narrative has so much trouble - a good person like Corrin simply wouldn't stay with these people, who so consistently show absolutely no signs of redemption and make multiple over-the-top evil statements about causing as much pain and suffering as possible, making Corrin seem more stupid than goodhearted.

TL;DR Conquest has an interesting setup and I love the characters and supports, which show the poverty stricken, do-what-must-be-done attitude the main plot should have had. The cast is probably my favorite out of the modern FE games (Awakening, Birthright, Conquest, Echoes). The writing comes across as either lazy or lacking coherence, as if the team creating the story couldn't let go of keeping to the rosy atmosphere of past FE stories even though it was supposed to be a darker and more nuanced path.

Just my two cents. The game itself is still amazing. Loving these maps all over again, especially coming from Echoes.

Addendum: I played as a girl this time. Married Jakob (who is so much nicer to have over Felicia in the beginning - combat and story-wise) in Birthright and got a green haired Dwyer, who I immediately reclassed to a Vanguard. Literally unstoppable. He was like Ike reincarnated, and his model has the perfect hairstyle for that class too. Loved seeing him get buff and wreck people while screaming "I just wanna go home!" when he crit somebody. The reluctant hero prince was much more interesting than he would have been had I left him as he was. He and his father were some of my favorite characters to begin with, so that helped too. Married Silas on Conquest so I could turn my Sophie into the classic green cavalier.

This is exactly how I feel about Fates, right down to being happy about my character setups. That's the real story in Conquest; your decisions and the little moments that result from them are the best. And yeah Jakob is god tier, in nearly every regard.
 
Quick question:

When you download all three games digitally, it is one spot or three? Do the start menus combine or is it like having three separate files?
 

NeonZ

Member
Quick question:

When you download all three games digitally, it is one spot or three? Do the start menus combine or is it like having three separate files?

You'll want to donwload one game and then get the other routes as DLC content. So, yes, it'll be a single game.

You can actually buy Conquest and Birthright separately and keep them as separate icons in your home screen, but that way it'll cost more and you won't get the extra items that you'd usually get for buying an extra route.
 
You'll want to donwload one game and then get the other routes as DLC content. So, yes, it'll be a single game.

You can actually buy Conquest and Birthright separately and keep them as separate icons in your home screen, but that way it'll cost more and you won't get the extra items that you'd usually get for buying an extra route.
Perfect. I just needed to know if it's one spot on my wish list or three... 1-1 world Nintendo problems!! LOL. Thanks so much.
 

chaosblade

Unconfirmed Member
I thought it was $80 originally. Maybe that $10 drop is a makeup discount for it taking so damn long for them to make it available again.

Still glad I got one at release, if only because I have the complete Fates trilogy on a physical cart.
 

Rutger

Banned

I know I'm responding to a post about four months old but you had to dig a bit for that one, haha.

I've changed my opinion on FE remakes a bit. Echoes ended up being a cool little experiment before moving onto new hardware. The next game or two should be a new one imo, but having a remake here and there can be fun
(give me that FE6 remake with Echoes production values, IS!)
.
 

cabbage5k2

Member
I just started a run of Birthright Lunatic for the first time and my god are chapters 4 and 5 bloody difficult and tense. Four is somewhat difficult primarily because I kept screwing up and nearly got Hinoka killed a few times before I got the right path down. And chapter 5.... extremely tense, managed to actually clear it on the first attempt, thanks to me using the hp tonic and Kaze. Otherwise... that map may have been the end of me. Then you hit chapters 6 and 7 and they're mostly piss easy. Just throw more of the same easily defeated enemies at you into easily turtled positions. I heard that this is mostly all the lunatic does for Birthright, but I wonder how much more interesting some later chapters such as 9, 10, 14, and 23 will play out.
 
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