Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Fire Emblem Fates: Final Review

So after playing the game on Lunatic as well as normal several times, there are all of my thoughts on all of the routes.
Also, Spoilers alert below:





Nohr:
-Incredibly well-done difficulty. Enemy units gain special enemy-only skills depending on the difficulty, which makes it even harder than ever as the difficulty level goes up. That said, these skills mainly appear near the end of the game. But you will probably have a hard time forgetting them after facing off with them. Also, enemy units often have skills that normally are not even learn-able by their class. There is even one map where the enemy has a specially designed weapon of infinite range.

-However, the story is terrible. Despite it being a "change the empire from the inside" story, the protagonist (and Aqua) decide that in order to make everyone realize that Garon is not sane, they have to, as a result, conquer Hoshido. And to achieve this, they will let Garon pretty much do anything he wants and orders. In other words, it's like the protagonist is a doormat. Lots of people die and these two are just like, "Gotta bear it" and let the massacres occur.
-The final boss is... somewhat more polarized as for opinions. I personally found the idiot emo-ing until this point kinda... stupid, though I was already pretty disappointed in the scenario to really have positive thoughts on the story.
-And yes, Lilith dies suddenly from getting killed by a nameless monster in a scene that really didn't need the scene. In other words, the scene is inserted... to invoke emotions? from the player, despite the fact Lilith plays no role in the game since Chapter 6 and everything happens so suddenly and... overall, the scene fails.
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Hoshido:
-Again, very well-done difficulty. It is purposely made to be easier than Norh, with units not really having much skills. But it still has enough difficulty that prevents you from clearing Lunatic without trouble. But it still is easy enough you can clear all maps on your first try.
The last several maps definitely make you feel like you are invading a large empire, because hordes of reinforcements appear to trample over you. And I mean hordes.
However, one of the strongest units in the game, Ryouma with his special weapon, has the ability to obliterate crowds on his own, so you won't ever get stuck on a chapter.

-For the story, it is much better than Nohr, but it still is mediocre at best. Then again, you need some real talent to mess up a typical story like this one.
However, there are still pointless deaths... such as yes, Lilith. Marcus and Elise's death is arguable, but it is still understandable to a point.
However, there are not that many complaints for the story. Nothing to praise either.
Oh, and for once, the Rainbow Sage does not die of idiotic reasons.
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Invisible Kingdom:
-Poorly done difficulty. The maps have a great focus on the gimmicks, but this creates maps that are more annoying and tedious than interesting or easy. The enemy units are not particularly interesting either, with no special skills. At the most, the enemy units will have skills that they normally learn, but even on the last few chapters, they will not have all of the skills they would normally have at the level they currently are at.
Because of this tediousness, you rarely want to do these maps again. Which makes it just that much more annoying if you want to restart after losing a unit.

-On the story, there just really isn't any. The route starts off with Aqua being stupid and getting everyone mad. In the first place, the two brothers were so eager to bring you back in the previous two routes, but in this route, they are so quick to call you traitor! So the route starts off weird enough.
The first half of the game literally revolves around collecting all of the characters. Not much story in that.
Then how about the 2nd half? Well, now you go and have "emotional" stages where you face off against undead, brainwashed relatives of yours. That is all.
You finally feel like you are playing Fire Emblem once you get to the last stage.

However, the worst part of this route is more of the staff not really working that hard.
For instance, they disabled Gunter's support conversations for some reason, but in the Castle, you still get the "Affection between Gunter and ***" went up. In the first place, disabling the conversations is practically a spoiler. And even after the major even, they should have un-disabled it.
Despite being the "true" route, Aqua has NO special ending. Her ending is the same as the other routes, meaning she just disappears in the epilogues. WTF?

And another big problem about this route is that the characters you collect and the levels they start out at are so, SO stupid. The biggest and most obvious example is Ashura and Nyx. Nyx appears as a Level 9 (Lower Class) unit and Ashura is Level 10 (Upper Class) unit. That is a 20+ level difference despite them appearing on the same map. You can't even use Nyx on that map because she will get killed.
On the level you get Marcus and Leon, these two have already been promoted, but their servants appear later on as non-promoted units. So again here, it is hard to use them on the map they appear on. And the worse part is that since the chapter they appear on comes after a chapter where you can't save, you don't want to risk losing them, since restarting will force you to go through the previous chapter again. But if you try to use them, their low levels and low defenses are a liability.

And Izana and the Rainbow Sage are the "WTF deaths" this time. Lilith is alive, but as always, she plays no role in the story. Because they only role she can get is to die, so if she doesn't die, she has no role.

  • So overall, the game isn't bad. But there are many places where holes exist, and it really, unfortunately, prevents the game from entering the "awesome" realm.
  • Despite the advertisement being that you don't need to play Invisible Kingdom to understand the other routes, the other routes are literally unfinished unless you do buy and play it. It still sucks after playing Invisible Kingdom, but just saying, the advertisement isn't really true.
  • Kozaki definitely drew better artwork this time, which is a good plus.
  • Practically every unit having a support conversation with every other unit in their route is... not a plus. There are so many support conversations as a result of this that it is hard to collect them all. Incredibly tedious. On top of that, there are quite a number of conversations where there is such a lack of topic, they use all 3 conversations on that one topic. Like, C: Let's do this next time, B: Let's do it, C: How was it? On top of that, some marriages not only make no sense, the characters don't seem to have any reason either other than the good ol' useful line "Love requires no reason"
  • Don't add a character silhouette in to the game only to require paid DLC to unlock it. I wouldn't mind Anna being paid DLC as much if they didn't have her shadow literally in the game from the start. Make her appear after you buy the DLC, duh?
  • The battle system is a lot more refined and the difficulty a lot more refined too, which is a big plus
  • The ranking system sucks. It's something that all ranking systems have to take into account, but if you only show the top Castles, then these top Castles will ALWAYS be at the top because they have more exposure. So that results in no change in the Rankings tops, forever
  • A lack of care towards cheaters is a disappointment. That said, it's not like much really is gained from cheating skills in this game...
  • It is understandable, but the staff was clearly too attached to Awakening. Maybe the reason is money. Maybe the reason is more emotional. 
    • Either way, they didn't really have a decent setting, but still, they decided to bring back the children system. And the setting is really screwed up in so many ways. It doesn't really even make sense either in so many ways.
    • Bringing back old characters. Well first, too much of a good thing becomes a poison. There is a point when favoritism is looked down on, not cheered on. Where you could have had a new character, you get a LOOK-A-LIKE with the same personality. On top of that, they try to connect the games with words like reincarnation, which brings about a whole bunch of wrong stuff like kids giving birth to their moms and such crap. In the first place, I don't want a LOOK-A-LIKE, I like the real thing. Just because I liked Tharja does NOT mean I would want to marry her LOOK-A-LIKE.
    • There are three characters that are not reincarnations but the actual people... and depending on the route, they try to kill you or get killed. And you are just looking at them wondering, WTF are you doing here? Yes, there was a DLC, but paid DLCs shouldn't be used to complete the story in the first place. In the first place, the mentioned DLC proceeded to make them look even more like fools. You know about all of this and yet you are trying to kill me... why?
So anyways, it is worth a buy, but there are still many improvements that can be made. The first thing to do is get rid of the script writer.

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