Topic: Fire Emblem: Fates

@Miss_Dark:
So, here's my honest take on the story/characters.

BIRTHRIGHT
Characters definitely not up to scratch with Awakening. They're not bad, but they don't really stand out with that personality we saw in Awakening. There are a few exceptions of course (Rinkah and Izana are absolute gems) but generally speaking they are much more bland.

The story isn't as good as you'd expect leading into the choice- definitely felt rushed and not as emotionally impactful as one would hope, but it's still decent and passable. Then the story goes bland for about 10-12 chapters. I was really beginning to bum about it, but then the final 1/4 of the game came out swinging, and hard. Totally redeemed Birthright and then some. Where Awakening kind of had a lackluster ending, Birhtright goes out in an emotional blaze of glory. A+++

CONQUEST
The characters, right off the bat, are noticeably better and right on par with Awakening. They all have those unique and flamboyant personalities, and are an absolute joy to watch in support conversations. It almost seems as if they had their A team do Conquest characters and another team do Birthright, because THIS has awesome characters like Awakening.

The story I can't comment on because I'm only on ch. 9. My brother told me he hated Conquest's story, but that Revelations was cream of the crop, like incredibly good. Not sure how much I believe him because it would take a really poor story to make me actually hate it, and it can't be worse than the that 12 Chaoter stretch from Birthright. So I'll judge it in due time for myself.

MAP DESIGN
Top notch, A+++ and as good as Ive ever seen in the entire series. The maps are so unique and well designed, you will love them. In Birthright the objectives are not that varied but the maps are still great; Conquest on the other hand is borderline perfection. And the Map Pack DLC, I hate to say it, has THE best maps I've ever played. AMAZING maps. The Ghostly Gold DLC map is absolutely superb. And the Beach Brawl map is, imo, the most amazing strategic gameplay I've experienced. That map pack is no slouch, and I fully endorse it to the uttermost.

GAMEPLAY
Like map design, best the series has ever offered. They took everything that was great about Awakening and improved upon it, and everything that was poorly balanced they tweaked to perfection. I didn't think I would like the abolition of limited use items, but to my surprise this new system is far superior to what we had before. The positive and negative stat buffs and debuffs provide a new layer of strategy not seen before in this series. There are pros and cons to every weapon you use and you'll have to think carefully about which weapon you want to equip at any given time. The new pair-up system is absolutely marvelous, with offensive and defensive stances which each have their own benefits, and should be prioritized depending on context of the situation. The gameplay is truly the star of the show.

All in all I would say these games are the best in the series to date, and even with a slow story for most of Birthright, the ending is so good that it redeems the game totally. And when looked at it with a little perspective, the truth of the matter is the story is still every bit as good as the GBA games were, even during that 12 Chapter stretch. It basically reminded me of Fire Emblem (GBA) and how you just travelled the map, with not much going on in between.

I'm surprised I haven't seen much conversation on the "censorship" of Kana. Girl kana cannot wear a bath towel, but boy Kana can. How dare they ruin the game! >:[

@TingLz:
I think people are just sick of all this censorship talk.

Good. I was tired of it too

Just recently started Revelations on hard. I forgot to change my settings to what I usually have (attack flow to classic instead of evolved) and was wondering why I kept accidentally pressing a an extra time when I just wanted to see how much an enemy and I would do to each other. This in turn caused me to accidentally get one of my units several times before I realized I still had the evolved setting on...

@JaxonH: Hmmm, nice insight. I agree on the birthright one. The last chapters came from nowhere and the ending...

As for Conquest, I felt the exact opposite. I personally didn't liked what happened after you beat chapter 27. Dunno, I was expecting something else, also the conclusion was meh for me at least.

As for revelations, I am on chapter12 and I like the maps. They introduce new map gameplay stuff. The story looks good so far.

I'm still mixed with the no durability thing. Some of the debuffs are meh, like the silver weapons one. You might as well forge a steel one and end up with a better weapon and with no huge penalty. Also the fact that forged silver weapons at +7 makes the S rank weapons useless....

Well the fact that only some classes can use them made them worthless anyway

@Gridatttack:
The thing about forging is, you can buy 2 steel weapons for same price as 1 silver, or 4 iron, or 8 brass.

You can forge a +3 brass, +2 iron or a + 1 steel, or have normal silver all for same price (aside from gems for forging). But the +3 brass in most cases won't be as strong as the +2 iron, which in turn won't be as strong as the +1 steel, which in turn won't be as strong as the silver (swords may be only exception to this).

Then you have to factor the buffs. The +3 brass will not perform crits or offensive skills and has lowest Mt, but has excellent hit rate and +10 dodge. +2 Iron is probably most well balanced- can do crits and skills, has a small positive buff, but no +10 dodge like brass and not as strong as these next 2. +1 Steel has a -3 Speed debuff, but is stronger than last two and I think gets 5 on crit as opposed to 0 (maybe I can't remember). The silver is stronger than all of those, and the negative stat drops when hitting enemies (like with shruriken) is unrivaled, with -4 Def, -4 Res and -4 Speed (something like that anyways). But it also drops your own stats after each use, so it's power comes at a cost.

I find that to be incredibly balanced, generally speaking. I do think the steel weapons are probably the worst deal out of all of them. And I think the brass is the second worst because you can't critical. I typically go with silver and forged iron equivalents.

I may try to farm some Killer weapons and forge them. Crits as far as the eye can see

@TingLz:

I don't think forging affects the crit rate though. I've never forged beyond +4 so maybe it does with a +5, +6 or +7 but you'd need a crapload of killer weapons to do that, and I don't think there are that many in the game

@JaxonH: You can get multiple Killer weapons by grinding Museum Melee.

I believe the Dusk Lottery gives them too, but it's not that reliable.

You gotta have SKILL

After finishing Birthright and starting Conquest, I feel like I'm cheating on my family in Hoshido. What have I done!? I've betrayed them. I feel so bad. Even though I felt connected to Nohr in the first 5 chapters of my original play through, I feel disconnected now.

Okay I've got a question I've played all the fire emblem games so difficultly isn't an issue. Let's pretend birthright and conquest had the exact same difficulty, for story purposes (I know they're different games) Which one should I play first?

Wait until you get to Cheve...

Honestly, I liked the Birthright -> Conquest -> Revelation route

Conquest drops a huge reveal in the middle, so play Birthright first

@DoctorOverbuild:
As @TingLz said,

Birthright > Conquest > Revelation

There are many nonchalant references in Conquest to events that were somewhat of a buildup in Birthright. Not only that but (and I know you said difficulty wasn't an issue but this is a little different so bare with me) with Conquest being considerably more difficult, it will probably spoil Birthright if you play Conquest first. Reason being is, you will adjust to that difficulty and then when you play a much easier game it's going to seem too easy.

So there's really not one good reason to be found to play them out of the above order, yet there are several reasons for playing them in this order. And Revelation is obviously the last one you should play because it has major spoilers for both games, and it will more rapidly introduce you to characters from both sides, all first impressions of which would be better left to their respective stories.

@JaxonH: @TingLz: Okay I'll do that then thanks guys! Just hope I can get that special edition

Special edition available on Amazon UK, quick!

@Grumblevolcano: not anymore