I do not understand the hate
Then again it was my first tactics game
Then again it was my first tactics game
Ahh, Fire Emblem Fates. The worst game the series has ever seen yet, and will likely remain the worst in the years to come, considering Fire Emblem Engage is feeling more like SoV and Three Houses than whatever style of writing Maeda championed for FE13 and 14, proving that Fire Emblem has essentially adopted FE15’s writing style as the core style for this now corrupted series. While FE13 was the game that corrupted the series to begin with, it was Fire Emblem Fates that basically cemented the death of the franchise as we knew it. The reason I say this is because once we examine the Ace Attorney series, we can see an interesting trend. GK2 was the lowest point of the Ace Attorney series, and Dual Destinies essentially put things back together again, saving the series from a destroyed identity. Fates on the other hand, only maliciously doubles down on making Awakening even more awful, as it is essentially the same game but with different/refined design concepts, new characters who are actually even worse than Awakening’s and SoV’s butchered versions of Gaiden characters, and the “best part...” Having improved Awakening’s gameplay.
A lot of people like Awakening because it’s just a dumb, fun time. Others seem to prefer Fire Emblem Fates for being objectively better designed, especially in Conquest, and they don’t really mind the awful writing. The reason for that, I assume, is because most people don’t really expect Fire Emblem to have a bombastic story besides Genealogy of the Holy War, which clearly shows most fans don’t care about having good writing and characters, only plot. Fire Emblem to them, is mostly about the gameplay, which is the only thing Fates does right, especially in Conquest. They fixed gamebreaking bugs found in Awakening that can result in your units being overstat, in addition to refining Pair-Up, allowing enemies to use it as well, resulting in infinitely better difficulty balancing, where enemies now have similar health pools to you in harder difficulties, as they should, instead of being insanely tanky meatshields that NEED pair up to be killed. People have made entire playthroughs of Awakening where they literally refused to use Pair-Up, because it was that broken in Awakening. Not in Fates, though. When I turn my brain off upon playing Fates, I can actually enjoy the gameplay and map design sometimes, because the designers actually learned how to develop good maps somehow. Really not sure why they removed weapon durability beside paving the way for the worst remake the series has ever seen. So yeah, the gameplay is, while inconsistent, pretty good sometimes. Only sometimes.
Besides that however, there is literally nothing good about this game. Nothing.
I can’t believe they made a game worse than freaking AWAKENING. Awakening was made bad on purpose because the developers had no hope of it ever succeeding, but apparently, the same people who saw it rake in the dollars immediately began developing Fates, believing that in order to sell, they have to reduce the quality of their writing to such a degree, that they hired a literal manga writer in order to wreck the script, and what we got was cringe of the highest order. In addition, remember how FE12 had 6 writers, 3 of which were veterans, and the 3 newcomers had to follow their vision? Well, in Awakening, these newcomers were given full reign, and the script they made was half baked, and far inferior to FE12’s. But FE14. Oh boy, FE14. That game deemed even these 3 noobs inadequate, so yeah, remove them and hire anime veterans and mangakas. They’re surely gonna carry this game. Not to mention the predatory marketing strategy that was the enTIRE premise. That’s right, FE14’s entire story is a marketing gimmick, just like Jar Jar Abrams Mystery Box. For as awful as it is, FE13 is still a normal modern game, and the asinine part is how it was one of the first Nintendo games to include paid DLC, proving that Nintendo was hoping to use Fire Emblem’s destroyed identity to milk money out of it. Well guess what? Fire Emblem Fates raked in even more dollars. The premise of Fates is as follows: You, as the insufferable Corrin, will have to choose which side to side with. Hoshido, the clearly established Japanese good guys? Or Nohr, the obviously evil European scumbags? Good premise on paper, but the way it was executed was horrendous. Instead of having all of them accessible in just one package, they were sold as three separate games under one banner: Fire Emblem Fates. In order to get the full experience, you must purchase ALL three games separately for 30 - 40 dollars each, or purchase the overpriced Special Edition, which contains all three paths which is the complete package this game should’ve been released in. Thank GOD for emulation, considering this game is far too overpriced for every paid option, and it’s so horrendous I didn’t even want to complete it past Conquest initially. Why would I want to play 3 cheaply made, terribly written pieces of trash for over 100 dollars, when I could just read through all I need for free to get a good understanding of this game’s godawful writing? And since godawful writing is the best trait used to describe this travesty...
Remember when I criticized Your Turn To Die for having next to no worldbuilding? Well guess what, Fire Emblem Fates does the exact same thing, except HERE I cannot forgive it one bit. The reason is very simple. YTTD is an entirely separate franchise that never set any worldbuilding standards, but Fire Emblem is a series that is extremely dependent on it, so removing it indefinitely is one of the worst things you can do in a Fire Emblem game. Believe it or not, FE14 is the only game in the series to not have a defined map, for the simple fact the writers didn’t care. A lot of bad animes including Akame ga Kill have limited or nonexistent worldbuilding, and this game being an anime follows suit. Even Awakening had a semblance of worldbuilding compared to this trash, and SoV and 3H too brought it back, so what excuse does FE14 have to remove something so critical to the series? Did it WANT to be bad?
The characters in Fates are horrendous. Somehow not as bad as GK2 characters, which shows just how terrible of a game GK2 is, but neither game surpasses the other. GK2 has an amazing OST, while FE14 has a terrible OST. FE14 has trash art, while GK2 has fantastic art with good direction. GK2 has fantastic graphics, while FE14’s graphics look awful, even for the 3DS, just like in Awakening. Though I guess they probably added in feet because that complaint was more important than addressing the terrible writing, which they doubled down making even worse, ironically. Yeah, great job, devs. So regarding Fates’ characters being better than GK2 characters, the reason why they are is very simple. GK2 had ½ dimensional, mechanical bad-niks that cannot exist as characters or NPCs. That’s right, even NPCs show much more personality than GK2 characters, who are unlikable plot slaving empty husks, who exist entirely to exposit and do naught else. Fire Emblem 14 on the other hand, has awful, one-dimensional characters sure, but at the very least, they still sound different from each other, have support conversations, and are given personal space to breathe as characters. They exist to be bad characters, but even bad characters are better than non-dimensional robots wearing human skin as a coat of paint. Yeah I’m serious, it’s because the FE14 characters aren’t just limited to some superficial catchphrase to set them apart. I mean it. Peri is a cavalier, the most powerful class in Fire Emblem, so it still makes sense that all she cares about is murdering other people, and she thinks it’s fun because she’s an anime, not Fire Emblem character. She’s at least infinitely more expressive than the brick wall that is Justine Courtney, and is therefore a much better written character somehow. Arthur is a justice dude who only cares about that and nothing else. I guess he’s charismatic and feels more like an Awakening character than a Fates one, hence why he’s the best. Ryoma and Xander have pretty much the same personality, which is to be the serious tactician prince of their respective nation. Azura is the Mia Fey who acts all high and mighty, being oh so mysterious and ominous, supposedly fantastic because she has a sad backstory, yet fails to act the sort. What great character writing you got there. And no, beating only GK2 is not really an accomplishment, since anything can beat that game’s character writing. Camilla is trash who shows affection for Corrin... by making terrible jokes about her design. In a support conversation with Corrin, she literally puts a note she wrote for them inside her core features. Wow, so this is what Fire Emblem was slated to become? Thank you, Kouhei Maeda. Your awful directing skills have come to fruition considering how inconsequential you were to Fire Emblem 12.
Before we get to Garon and Corrin, I gotta ask: where the heck are we? Even GK2 bothered to include worldbuilding (the best part about The Bland Turnabout is the map showing the Grand Tower), which is what I meant when I said both GK2 and FE14 are inconsistently horrendous. GK2 has better worldbuilding and especially plot, but far, FAR worse characters. GK2 pretended to be morally grey even though it isn’t, which at least shows the writers tried somewhat? In FE14, it’s just Hoshido VS Nohr, which is super black and white, and the fact the heroic Hoshido is the Japanese nation proves that the writers were racist, considering Nohr is supposed to be west European. Yeah so, East Asians are good and West Europeans, gotta include the West part because it’s important, are bad. Great. Job.
Alright, Garon. Easily the worst antagonist in the series. Remember how bad of a villain Gangrel was? Well, he was a mustache twirler sure, but he at least had charisma and whimsy, not something to be shared with Walhart and Garon. The difference between Walhart and Garon however is, despite them both having the same, GK2ish personality, is that Walhart is a minor villain, while Garon is the main antagonist. Garon sucks because he’s a GK2 character, he’s evil because he’s evil and he has no personality. Wow. The same people who call Dane Gustavia a well written character say Garon is terrible, even though they’re essentially the same person. Why? Because Dane had a THEME attached while Garon doesn’t. How compelling. Even though both clearly are not. At least FE14 gets the criticism it deserves while GK2 somehow doesn’t, and instead revels in some retarded narrative where it is “the perfect game that can do no wrong” where nobody wants to acknowledge even minor nitpicks just to keep that narrative afloat.
And so now we get into one of the most controversial characters in the series: FE14’s avatar protagonist, Corrin. I believe it’s important we talk about every single avatar before we zero in on Corrin, considering Corrin is easily the worst one. As I implied in my 3H review, even the emotionless Byleth is an improvement.
The avatar protagonist was a trend that started in FE12, New Mystery of the Emblem, but the difference there is that it worked with the way it was executed. Because FE12’s Kris was not the main character, they simply felt more like a nice addition than an overpowered Mary Sue/Gary Stu hard carrying everything all the time. Following Kris, our friend Kouhei Maeda was not impressed, so he again directed FE13, this time giving Robin far more agency in the story. Sounds like a good thing at first, until you realize the problem: Fire Emblem always followed some central protagonist who was not a self insert, and their stories always made sense because they have a unique personality. Leif for example, is the best protagonist in the series because he’s constantly getting into arguments with Augustus over what he can do to emerge victorious, and because Leif’s personality is clearly defined, these moments and more can only work for Leif, and not a self insert avatar, whose dialogue is meant to be as generic as humanly possible to avoid pivoting to an extreme trait that would not be desirable in most people, which is the limitation of self insert avatar protagonists. This worked for Kris because they were the everyman/everywoman who would feel Katarina’s betrayal very naturally, and even then, their reaction to it wasn’t the strongest, even though they are the MOST expressive avatar protagonists, cementing them as the only good one in the series. Again, FE12 is a masterpiece that understood that limit, so reducing Kris’s agency to being Marth’s shadow was a brilliantly executed take on that idea. Everyone praises FE15 over FE12 for not adding an avatar, when I would rather have a badly written avatar added to the unharmed cast over just harming said cast, not that Kris was ever badly written to begin with anyway.
Now what about Robin? Robin is the perfect person, as they’re very friendly, and the only interesting thing about them is that they’re simultaneously the main villain as well as the main character. It’s why Chrom feels so shafted a lot of the time, even though he’s supposed to be the main main character of FE13. Then again, that game was trash, but to be fair, Robin had a very desirable personality for a lot of people, because their dialogue was very heroic and encouraging, so if I were to call out the 2nd best self insert character, it would have to be Robin, even though they’re nowhere near as human as Kris. Harvester of Eyes humorously renamed his Robin to Batman, and cited him as being so overpowered that he even singlehandedly defeated Grima, FE13’s final boss. Before we move onto Corrin, I’d like to touch upon Byleth and explain why they’re a minor improvement over Corrin. Now, because FE16 is a weeb game that so closely resembles Persona V, it’s only natural to have the super stoic robot contrast with everyone else. Byleth having no personality is their ultimate detriment, but it is slightly better than what the writers decided to go for when writing Corrin. Because with Byleth, they technically wander outside of the player’s mind because of how dry and emotionless they are, that you forget they even exist half the time once the infinitely more expressive anime students preach and worship their unlikable, mechanical instructor. Meanwhile, Corrin is the worst take on a self insert protagonist in every way possible. I’m not sure if this is a sick joke on behalf of the writers, but Corrin acts like a super spoiled brat and is constantly coddled by everyone, which is not going to make the player feel good about themselves in any way, shape or form unless they’re a spoiled child who can relate to them somehow. Where Byleth is forgettably unlikable, Corrin is thoroughly and blatantly unlikable, which cements them as the worst, and I have no idea why some people still cosplay as Corrin. That’s basically it, really. Corrin is a coddled stupidface who is also a manakete super Saiyan who never uses their God given superpower until the last minute against Garon, who is also a manakete super Saiyan, in the most black and white story every conceived in the history of Fire Emblem. As for Engage, Alear is basically yet another manakete super Saiyan hero, seemingly bridging the gap between Robin (who’s also not even fully human) and Corrin. Being so desensitized to new Fire Emblem made me realize that even Alear is better than Corrin, because even revisiting Corrin’s scenes make me cringe 5000 times harder than the cringe I’ve gotten used to by now. Also, Alear is somehow an improvement over Byleth, because they at least have a little bit of personality. They're just a generic Mary Sue/Gary Stu with a dark side that's only there to trick you into thinking that they're morally grey somehow. Case in point, every FE avatar protagonist sucks beside Kris, unpopular opinion I'm sure.
Alright, I’ve raved on long enough. Considering this game is split into three parts, or “games” if you are Nintendo gleefully counting the money made from this game’s awful marketing gimmick, I have decided to dissect the routes in their own separate slots. This game is super horrendous, with the worst characters the series has ever seen, worst FE OST, most black and white story in a series known for moral ambiguity, most shameless marketing strategy birthed out of greed following the success of Awakening, worst self insert avatar compared even to Byleth and Alear, and without a doubt, the worst writing the series has ever seen. Evidently, after Kouhei Maeda stopped directing games considering that this was the last mainline game he directed, the writing seemed to improve... By only a very slight margin. The damage has already been done, as the series is permanently destroyed thanks to Fates, considering the series had a chance to recover following Awakening. A tragic tale of how corporate greed destroyed a once-respected franchise’s identity to milk money off it as a shadow of its former self.
A lot of people like Awakening because it’s just a dumb, fun time. Others seem to prefer Fire Emblem Fates for being objectively better designed, especially in Conquest, and they don’t really mind the awful writing. The reason for that, I assume, is because most people don’t really expect Fire Emblem to have a bombastic story besides Genealogy of the Holy War, which clearly shows most fans don’t care about having good writing and characters, only plot. Fire Emblem to them, is mostly about the gameplay, which is the only thing Fates does right, especially in Conquest. They fixed gamebreaking bugs found in Awakening that can result in your units being overstat, in addition to refining Pair-Up, allowing enemies to use it as well, resulting in infinitely better difficulty balancing, where enemies now have similar health pools to you in harder difficulties, as they should, instead of being insanely tanky meatshields that NEED pair up to be killed. People have made entire playthroughs of Awakening where they literally refused to use Pair-Up, because it was that broken in Awakening. Not in Fates, though. When I turn my brain off upon playing Fates, I can actually enjoy the gameplay and map design sometimes, because the designers actually learned how to develop good maps somehow. Really not sure why they removed weapon durability beside paving the way for the worst remake the series has ever seen. So yeah, the gameplay is, while inconsistent, pretty good sometimes. Only sometimes.
Besides that however, there is literally nothing good about this game. Nothing.
I can’t believe they made a game worse than freaking AWAKENING. Awakening was made bad on purpose because the developers had no hope of it ever succeeding, but apparently, the same people who saw it rake in the dollars immediately began developing Fates, believing that in order to sell, they have to reduce the quality of their writing to such a degree, that they hired a literal manga writer in order to wreck the script, and what we got was cringe of the highest order. In addition, remember how FE12 had 6 writers, 3 of which were veterans, and the 3 newcomers had to follow their vision? Well, in Awakening, these newcomers were given full reign, and the script they made was half baked, and far inferior to FE12’s. But FE14. Oh boy, FE14. That game deemed even these 3 noobs inadequate, so yeah, remove them and hire anime veterans and mangakas. They’re surely gonna carry this game. Not to mention the predatory marketing strategy that was the enTIRE premise. That’s right, FE14’s entire story is a marketing gimmick, just like Jar Jar Abrams Mystery Box. For as awful as it is, FE13 is still a normal modern game, and the asinine part is how it was one of the first Nintendo games to include paid DLC, proving that Nintendo was hoping to use Fire Emblem’s destroyed identity to milk money out of it. Well guess what? Fire Emblem Fates raked in even more dollars. The premise of Fates is as follows: You, as the insufferable Corrin, will have to choose which side to side with. Hoshido, the clearly established Japanese good guys? Or Nohr, the obviously evil European scumbags? Good premise on paper, but the way it was executed was horrendous. Instead of having all of them accessible in just one package, they were sold as three separate games under one banner: Fire Emblem Fates. In order to get the full experience, you must purchase ALL three games separately for 30 - 40 dollars each, or purchase the overpriced Special Edition, which contains all three paths which is the complete package this game should’ve been released in. Thank GOD for emulation, considering this game is far too overpriced for every paid option, and it’s so horrendous I didn’t even want to complete it past Conquest initially. Why would I want to play 3 cheaply made, terribly written pieces of trash for over 100 dollars, when I could just read through all I need for free to get a good understanding of this game’s godawful writing? And since godawful writing is the best trait used to describe this travesty...
Remember when I criticized Your Turn To Die for having next to no worldbuilding? Well guess what, Fire Emblem Fates does the exact same thing, except HERE I cannot forgive it one bit. The reason is very simple. YTTD is an entirely separate franchise that never set any worldbuilding standards, but Fire Emblem is a series that is extremely dependent on it, so removing it indefinitely is one of the worst things you can do in a Fire Emblem game. Believe it or not, FE14 is the only game in the series to not have a defined map, for the simple fact the writers didn’t care. A lot of bad animes including Akame ga Kill have limited or nonexistent worldbuilding, and this game being an anime follows suit. Even Awakening had a semblance of worldbuilding compared to this trash, and SoV and 3H too brought it back, so what excuse does FE14 have to remove something so critical to the series? Did it WANT to be bad?
The characters in Fates are horrendous. Somehow not as bad as GK2 characters, which shows just how terrible of a game GK2 is, but neither game surpasses the other. GK2 has an amazing OST, while FE14 has a terrible OST. FE14 has trash art, while GK2 has fantastic art with good direction. GK2 has fantastic graphics, while FE14’s graphics look awful, even for the 3DS, just like in Awakening. Though I guess they probably added in feet because that complaint was more important than addressing the terrible writing, which they doubled down making even worse, ironically. Yeah, great job, devs. So regarding Fates’ characters being better than GK2 characters, the reason why they are is very simple. GK2 had ½ dimensional, mechanical bad-niks that cannot exist as characters or NPCs. That’s right, even NPCs show much more personality than GK2 characters, who are unlikable plot slaving empty husks, who exist entirely to exposit and do naught else. Fire Emblem 14 on the other hand, has awful, one-dimensional characters sure, but at the very least, they still sound different from each other, have support conversations, and are given personal space to breathe as characters. They exist to be bad characters, but even bad characters are better than non-dimensional robots wearing human skin as a coat of paint. Yeah I’m serious, it’s because the FE14 characters aren’t just limited to some superficial catchphrase to set them apart. I mean it. Peri is a cavalier, the most powerful class in Fire Emblem, so it still makes sense that all she cares about is murdering other people, and she thinks it’s fun because she’s an anime, not Fire Emblem character. She’s at least infinitely more expressive than the brick wall that is Justine Courtney, and is therefore a much better written character somehow. Arthur is a justice dude who only cares about that and nothing else. I guess he’s charismatic and feels more like an Awakening character than a Fates one, hence why he’s the best. Ryoma and Xander have pretty much the same personality, which is to be the serious tactician prince of their respective nation. Azura is the Mia Fey who acts all high and mighty, being oh so mysterious and ominous, supposedly fantastic because she has a sad backstory, yet fails to act the sort. What great character writing you got there. And no, beating only GK2 is not really an accomplishment, since anything can beat that game’s character writing. Camilla is trash who shows affection for Corrin... by making terrible jokes about her design. In a support conversation with Corrin, she literally puts a note she wrote for them inside her core features. Wow, so this is what Fire Emblem was slated to become? Thank you, Kouhei Maeda. Your awful directing skills have come to fruition considering how inconsequential you were to Fire Emblem 12.
Before we get to Garon and Corrin, I gotta ask: where the heck are we? Even GK2 bothered to include worldbuilding (the best part about The Bland Turnabout is the map showing the Grand Tower), which is what I meant when I said both GK2 and FE14 are inconsistently horrendous. GK2 has better worldbuilding and especially plot, but far, FAR worse characters. GK2 pretended to be morally grey even though it isn’t, which at least shows the writers tried somewhat? In FE14, it’s just Hoshido VS Nohr, which is super black and white, and the fact the heroic Hoshido is the Japanese nation proves that the writers were racist, considering Nohr is supposed to be west European. Yeah so, East Asians are good and West Europeans, gotta include the West part because it’s important, are bad. Great. Job.
Alright, Garon. Easily the worst antagonist in the series. Remember how bad of a villain Gangrel was? Well, he was a mustache twirler sure, but he at least had charisma and whimsy, not something to be shared with Walhart and Garon. The difference between Walhart and Garon however is, despite them both having the same, GK2ish personality, is that Walhart is a minor villain, while Garon is the main antagonist. Garon sucks because he’s a GK2 character, he’s evil because he’s evil and he has no personality. Wow. The same people who call Dane Gustavia a well written character say Garon is terrible, even though they’re essentially the same person. Why? Because Dane had a THEME attached while Garon doesn’t. How compelling. Even though both clearly are not. At least FE14 gets the criticism it deserves while GK2 somehow doesn’t, and instead revels in some retarded narrative where it is “the perfect game that can do no wrong” where nobody wants to acknowledge even minor nitpicks just to keep that narrative afloat.
And so now we get into one of the most controversial characters in the series: FE14’s avatar protagonist, Corrin. I believe it’s important we talk about every single avatar before we zero in on Corrin, considering Corrin is easily the worst one. As I implied in my 3H review, even the emotionless Byleth is an improvement.
The avatar protagonist was a trend that started in FE12, New Mystery of the Emblem, but the difference there is that it worked with the way it was executed. Because FE12’s Kris was not the main character, they simply felt more like a nice addition than an overpowered Mary Sue/Gary Stu hard carrying everything all the time. Following Kris, our friend Kouhei Maeda was not impressed, so he again directed FE13, this time giving Robin far more agency in the story. Sounds like a good thing at first, until you realize the problem: Fire Emblem always followed some central protagonist who was not a self insert, and their stories always made sense because they have a unique personality. Leif for example, is the best protagonist in the series because he’s constantly getting into arguments with Augustus over what he can do to emerge victorious, and because Leif’s personality is clearly defined, these moments and more can only work for Leif, and not a self insert avatar, whose dialogue is meant to be as generic as humanly possible to avoid pivoting to an extreme trait that would not be desirable in most people, which is the limitation of self insert avatar protagonists. This worked for Kris because they were the everyman/everywoman who would feel Katarina’s betrayal very naturally, and even then, their reaction to it wasn’t the strongest, even though they are the MOST expressive avatar protagonists, cementing them as the only good one in the series. Again, FE12 is a masterpiece that understood that limit, so reducing Kris’s agency to being Marth’s shadow was a brilliantly executed take on that idea. Everyone praises FE15 over FE12 for not adding an avatar, when I would rather have a badly written avatar added to the unharmed cast over just harming said cast, not that Kris was ever badly written to begin with anyway.
Now what about Robin? Robin is the perfect person, as they’re very friendly, and the only interesting thing about them is that they’re simultaneously the main villain as well as the main character. It’s why Chrom feels so shafted a lot of the time, even though he’s supposed to be the main main character of FE13. Then again, that game was trash, but to be fair, Robin had a very desirable personality for a lot of people, because their dialogue was very heroic and encouraging, so if I were to call out the 2nd best self insert character, it would have to be Robin, even though they’re nowhere near as human as Kris. Harvester of Eyes humorously renamed his Robin to Batman, and cited him as being so overpowered that he even singlehandedly defeated Grima, FE13’s final boss. Before we move onto Corrin, I’d like to touch upon Byleth and explain why they’re a minor improvement over Corrin. Now, because FE16 is a weeb game that so closely resembles Persona V, it’s only natural to have the super stoic robot contrast with everyone else. Byleth having no personality is their ultimate detriment, but it is slightly better than what the writers decided to go for when writing Corrin. Because with Byleth, they technically wander outside of the player’s mind because of how dry and emotionless they are, that you forget they even exist half the time once the infinitely more expressive anime students preach and worship their unlikable, mechanical instructor. Meanwhile, Corrin is the worst take on a self insert protagonist in every way possible. I’m not sure if this is a sick joke on behalf of the writers, but Corrin acts like a super spoiled brat and is constantly coddled by everyone, which is not going to make the player feel good about themselves in any way, shape or form unless they’re a spoiled child who can relate to them somehow. Where Byleth is forgettably unlikable, Corrin is thoroughly and blatantly unlikable, which cements them as the worst, and I have no idea why some people still cosplay as Corrin. That’s basically it, really. Corrin is a coddled stupidface who is also a manakete super Saiyan who never uses their God given superpower until the last minute against Garon, who is also a manakete super Saiyan, in the most black and white story every conceived in the history of Fire Emblem. As for Engage, Alear is basically yet another manakete super Saiyan hero, seemingly bridging the gap between Robin (who’s also not even fully human) and Corrin. Being so desensitized to new Fire Emblem made me realize that even Alear is better than Corrin, because even revisiting Corrin’s scenes make me cringe 5000 times harder than the cringe I’ve gotten used to by now. Also, Alear is somehow an improvement over Byleth, because they at least have a little bit of personality. They're just a generic Mary Sue/Gary Stu with a dark side that's only there to trick you into thinking that they're morally grey somehow. Case in point, every FE avatar protagonist sucks beside Kris, unpopular opinion I'm sure.
Alright, I’ve raved on long enough. Considering this game is split into three parts, or “games” if you are Nintendo gleefully counting the money made from this game’s awful marketing gimmick, I have decided to dissect the routes in their own separate slots. This game is super horrendous, with the worst characters the series has ever seen, worst FE OST, most black and white story in a series known for moral ambiguity, most shameless marketing strategy birthed out of greed following the success of Awakening, worst self insert avatar compared even to Byleth and Alear, and without a doubt, the worst writing the series has ever seen. Evidently, after Kouhei Maeda stopped directing games considering that this was the last mainline game he directed, the writing seemed to improve... By only a very slight margin. The damage has already been done, as the series is permanently destroyed thanks to Fates, considering the series had a chance to recover following Awakening. A tragic tale of how corporate greed destroyed a once-respected franchise’s identity to milk money off it as a shadow of its former self.
a stain on the pants of god.
CORRIN É MERDA e eu queria que ele não aparecesse do nada nos diálogos
played conquest and birthright but the way that its still unfinished is killing me.... looool.....
Rating this one as an average of all three:
Birthright: 3/5
Conquest: 4/5
Revelation: 2/5
Birthright: 3/5
Conquest: 4/5
Revelation: 2/5
game is so good when you dont have anyone telling you why it sucks.
yeah, the story isn't good, but there are a lot of pretty good characters, and the gameplay is probably peak fire emblem. conquest is the best out of the three, but the other two are overhated, and almost as good in terms of gameplay, which is the only thing that matters for this game
yeah, the story isn't good, but there are a lot of pretty good characters, and the gameplay is probably peak fire emblem. conquest is the best out of the three, but the other two are overhated, and almost as good in terms of gameplay, which is the only thing that matters for this game
This is indeed a game(s) that exists. But I have a soft spot for it mainly cause it's my first FE, playing Corrin in Smash, and it having my favorite waifu: Azura.
How did we go from characters like Lyndis and Matthew to this? The gameplay is fine, the rest is a travesty.
easily replayable i hate half of the characters in this game
If I could throw this entire game into a dumpster fire I would. I love a handful of characters and the classes in this game are cool as hell but that will never make up for the amount of pure bullshit this game puts you through. Lack luster plot, incest and pedo shit at every turn, and some of the most sexist designs this franchise has ever had.
The story is so weird... i love it
Sos tantas cosas y ninguna de esas me deja amarte dios mio tenes tantas fallas y en otros lados tantos aciertos te detesto.
this game is like one of the worst fe games I have played
Fuck you I'm writing an essay.
Fates is the worst game I've ever played.
In retrospect, it's a miracle that the series managed to climb out of the hole it dug itself in. Thank god for Echoes and Three Houses for redirecting the series in a promising direction.
Imagine trying to piggyback off the success of an entry so much that you would strip anything and everything the series had into a moneygrubbing parasite with the sole intention of becoming what everybody wanted. More supports. More characters. More shipping.
That's what people loved about the series.
That's what it became.
If the series continued in this direction I honestly think it would have been better if it was never saved by Awakening in the first place. It strips any kind of heart that the previous games had to create something truly monstrous. Did anybody ever get encapsulated by the game's paper thin plot, or its tropey characters, or its completely inconsistent design and gameplay? Everything is so middle in the road it hurts, from the MyCastle to the moment-to-moment gameplay. I don't think I've ever had fun playing this game, I completed all three games only to realize that my experience with it was absolutely meaningless.
It's everything I've ever hated about video games. I cannot fathom how anybody could enjoy a game so devoid of heart and creativity. This game was destined to be a product, so much so that Corrin got into smash before the game even released worldwide. That's absolutely pathetic.
Where was it? Where was the passion? When does this game ever give me a reason why I should play it? A game devoid of any soul.
Fates is the worst game I've ever played.
Fates is the worst game I've ever played.
In retrospect, it's a miracle that the series managed to climb out of the hole it dug itself in. Thank god for Echoes and Three Houses for redirecting the series in a promising direction.
Imagine trying to piggyback off the success of an entry so much that you would strip anything and everything the series had into a moneygrubbing parasite with the sole intention of becoming what everybody wanted. More supports. More characters. More shipping.
That's what people loved about the series.
That's what it became.
If the series continued in this direction I honestly think it would have been better if it was never saved by Awakening in the first place. It strips any kind of heart that the previous games had to create something truly monstrous. Did anybody ever get encapsulated by the game's paper thin plot, or its tropey characters, or its completely inconsistent design and gameplay? Everything is so middle in the road it hurts, from the MyCastle to the moment-to-moment gameplay. I don't think I've ever had fun playing this game, I completed all three games only to realize that my experience with it was absolutely meaningless.
It's everything I've ever hated about video games. I cannot fathom how anybody could enjoy a game so devoid of heart and creativity. This game was destined to be a product, so much so that Corrin got into smash before the game even released worldwide. That's absolutely pathetic.
Where was it? Where was the passion? When does this game ever give me a reason why I should play it? A game devoid of any soul.
Fates is the worst game I've ever played.
Camilla's giant rack must have help her balance, since she had to carry my entire playthrough on her back
Maybe not the best, but is very deep in my heart this game.
this game is a dumpster fire but its MY dumpster fire AND believe it or not it was my first fire emblem. yes. this dumb ass game made me fall in love with the series. yes, 15 year old me took the plot vey seriously. yes, i mustve spent like 100 dollars on this god damn game. yes, you can laugh.
the plot is trash but gameplay wise it still holds up really well (especially the conquest and revelation paths)
the Marketable Nintendo Song is lovely, as is the whole ost ngl
if you want to have fun revisiting this game please pick up mods and play through the dlc if you havent already. im currently replaying it with a randomized file + the gay fates hack and its amazing
the plot is trash but gameplay wise it still holds up really well (especially the conquest and revelation paths)
the Marketable Nintendo Song is lovely, as is the whole ost ngl
if you want to have fun revisiting this game please pick up mods and play through the dlc if you havent already. im currently replaying it with a randomized file + the gay fates hack and its amazing
Almost killed the franchise
fire emblem fates is my favorite game in the franchise. it took everything established in awakening and tweaked them to perfection. the pair up system has added depth to it, requiring good positioning and awareness to get the best use of it. the map design is also quite solid, especially on the conquest route even though the other two have some standouts. the biggest issue (besides the god awful writing that everyone loves to make fun of) is the gap in quality from conquest (one of the most challenging but also fair and rewarding games in the series) and the other two routes, birthright and revelation, which can become tedious or straight up jokes to play through. regardless of which path you take, the mechanical soundness of this game ensures you'll still find lots of fun playing
very overhated
Objectively awful but IDC I still had fun with it
this game sucks no matter what hoops it jumps through. the only important character is charlotte
gameplay sucks
So many whiny reviews from prudes and people with crap taste.
STORY - 4/5, fun, engaging. Not a deep shakespearean play or anything but then again neither are 99.9999% of the games I've played.
GAMEPLAY - 3.5/5, can get a bit repetitive and the difficulty levels seem a bit wonky? But I like the improvements in terms of QOL and abilities and so on from Shadow Dragon and New Mystery
CHARACTER - 4/5, great designs, fun personalities.
Overall it was very cool to see so much added to the world. I was surprised at the great backgrounds/atmospheres/settings, the cool minigames and side missions, et cetera. Didn't think I'd have my mind subtly blown by a 3DS game after playing games like Elden Ring.
I heard the localization is pretty trash but honestly I couldn't bother to read the JP version for this, and you can also patch the swimsuits etc back in if you want.
I did end up soft-dropping (or putting it on hold... probably forever) the game, because I'm trying to experience a bunch of different games and stories and can't justify putting so much time in just one when I don't think it's the be all end all of gaming.
If you're looking for a fun time though, look no further than here.
STORY - 4/5, fun, engaging. Not a deep shakespearean play or anything but then again neither are 99.9999% of the games I've played.
GAMEPLAY - 3.5/5, can get a bit repetitive and the difficulty levels seem a bit wonky? But I like the improvements in terms of QOL and abilities and so on from Shadow Dragon and New Mystery
CHARACTER - 4/5, great designs, fun personalities.
Overall it was very cool to see so much added to the world. I was surprised at the great backgrounds/atmospheres/settings, the cool minigames and side missions, et cetera. Didn't think I'd have my mind subtly blown by a 3DS game after playing games like Elden Ring.
I heard the localization is pretty trash but honestly I couldn't bother to read the JP version for this, and you can also patch the swimsuits etc back in if you want.
I did end up soft-dropping (or putting it on hold... probably forever) the game, because I'm trying to experience a bunch of different games and stories and can't justify putting so much time in just one when I don't think it's the be all end all of gaming.
If you're looking for a fun time though, look no further than here.
Corrin feminina >>>>>> masculino.
Tried to copy what made Awakening great, but had a significantly worse story and characters. At least the soundtrack was good though.
Good gameplay, shite story
Second FE I played. Had some interesting concepts with the branching paths and classes but other than that, it's awful. Most of the game is locked behind buying both versions alongside the 'true' path being locked under a digital paywall. Took alot of what made Awakening great and completely butchers it for a broader audience. Just homebrew the Special Edition if you want to suffer.
Just a heads up, every review posted before this was copy-pasted from my GG account.
LINK: https://ggapp.io/Platy
I decided to log the Special Edition of Fire Emblem Fates rather than all three routes seperately because, let's face it, Fire Emblem Fates is just one game sold in parts. Because I'm lazy, I'll leave a link to my YouTube review of this shitshow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVmmNvh2JPE
LINK: https://ggapp.io/Platy
I decided to log the Special Edition of Fire Emblem Fates rather than all three routes seperately because, let's face it, Fire Emblem Fates is just one game sold in parts. Because I'm lazy, I'll leave a link to my YouTube review of this shitshow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVmmNvh2JPE