Fire Emblem Hot Takes (no, it ain't a new spin-off title)

[ChikoLad]

I'm bored and felt like writing up some things, and figured other people may get some use of such a thread from time to time. So here goes.

Basically, just post any miscellaneous thoughts about aspects of the Fire Emblem franchise that don't really belong anywhere else. Particularly the kind of opinions that you know at least a subset of the community would probably go into a nerd rage over hearing, the kind you might not say just anywhere as they may rain on someone's parade or you know the community you're in wouldn't be a big fan. You could alternatively consider this the "Fire Emblem venting" thread. While it's OK to discuss some of the things brought up, I would like to ask that as a general rule, people keep things civil and don't try to tear down any opinions posted here. This is just a thread for people to get things off of their chest.

Oh, and opinions posted don't necessarily have to be unpopular, per se. More just things you feel might be a bit controversial if posted in an average Fire Emblem board/community.

I'll start with a few:

-I enjoyed Birthright more than Conquest. Played both on Lunatic Classic. IMO Conquest has some really stellar maps, but my big issue with it is that it has some really obnoxiously bad chapters too that can completely bottleneck your run unless you take drastic measures some would consider cheating. It feels like it's designed with My Castle and DLC abuse in mind (at least on Lunatic), since the game loves throwing some really ridiculous skills on some of the enemies, throwing tons of ninjas with bloated stats at you, and just some really ridiculous traps in terms of how reinforcements can be used in some maps. And besides that, the story was just bad, and the characters are way more hit and miss in Conquest. People consider the Birthright cast boring or too inoffensive, but IMO I appreciate how Birthright had these unified themes of cultural and familial heritages throughout it's cast. At the very least, the quality of the cast felt consistently solid, with a few highlights that I latched onto personally. Conquest just felt like it was trying way too hard to make most characters edgy or tragic, and it had WILDLY varying degrees of success (though the highs are indeed very high, like Nyx).

-Shadows of Valentia's map design isn't terrible. I feel like it's open plains maps had a bit more..."thought" behind them somehow compared to some of the more plain maps in other games. I admittedly find it difficult to explain what I mean in a cohesive manner though, and can understand where the criticism comes from.

-Heroes is really not that generous as far as gacha games go, and I find it's summoning system extremely outdated compared to others.

 

[Frizz]

I like Kris.

Yeah, that's right.

I like Kris, the Avatar from FE12.

While I do agree that his character is bland, receives a lot of unnecessary praise from the characters throughout the game, and forces himself into the story far much more than he should, as far as Avatars go, he's the best Avatar, at least conceptually.

He's just an ordinary guy. He doesn't have a gift for tactics or was born to be the vessel for a god of destruction, and he wasn't born into nobility (unless you chose that for him) and fought over. He's not even the "chosen one", Marth is. Instead, he trains, both physically and mentally. He doesn't have much background outside of things relating to his grandfather, but maybe that's a good thing. I think it's easier to relate and self-insert as that than as Robin or Corrin.

Kris also had pretty good customization options—you were able to adjust their growth rates, give them a boost in stats, and change their starting class.

But yeah, they weren't THE worst. I'd say Corrin's a bit worse than them, just by a little bit.

I also don't mind the children mechanic. It makes sense in Awakening's case, and would make sense if they ever did a generation split like they did with FE4/5 and to an extent FE7/6, but it doesn't make sense in FE14. I know that last part isn't necessarily a hot take, but yeah. If they ever did do another game with playable children, I wouldn't mind if there was a generation split, or at the bare minimum had a decent explanation.