i've been thinking a lot about fire emblem fates(fe14) since finishing birthright and i want to type out my thoughts before they fade from me. this probably won't be as in-depth as the fe15 review(if you can call that smear campaign a review), but i'll still do my best to articulate what i did and didn't like about the game.

-gameplay-

let's start with the gameplay. the gameplay in fe14 is, for the most part, quite refined. the weapon triangle is very important and actually scales with your unit's rank in that weapon. i never personally found that to be an issue, but i almost never switched off of the "intended" weapon path for each character, and i can see how this does slightly disincentivize changing weapons later in the game. the weapon triangle has also been expanded to be six weapons instead of three: swords and tomes are effective against axes and bows, axes and bows are effective against lances and knives, and lances and knives are effective against swords and tomes. this is a great change, allowing all units to take advantage of the triangle, which can be a problem for ranged units in other games. the game also features buffs in a more prominent fashion than other games with knives. knives inflict a stat-drop on contact that weakens over turns. these are great, and really incentivize setting up kills. you can also debuff yourself with certain weapons. because weapon weight has been removed, more powerful weapons tend to have a significant downside, whether it be lowered speed, defenses, or some other affliction. this is a fine change. it's annoying that many units cannot double without weaker weapons, but it's not the end of the world. certain weapons also provide flat buffs when equipped, e.g. swords weaken both defensive stats by one point. this is a pretty pointless change in my opinion. the buffs are rarely enough to make a difference, and just feels like a change to make a change.

now for map design. i found the maps to be mostly fine, nothing truly grand besides maybe the finale which forces you to play incredibly aggressively and sacrifice units. they're not abundant narrow choke points, which i appreciate, but some of the midgame maps can be annoying. it's nothing nearly as atrocious as fe15 maps or as long as fe4, but nothing really mind-blowing.

-music and art-

i want to quickly touch upon the music and art before finishing with the story because they are pretty simple to talk about. the music in fates is fuckin fantastic, some of the best in the series. weirdly, it reminds me of star wars, where an otherwise mediocre scene(map) can become pretty fun because of the great soundtrack. the art, on the other hand, is fine. it's that same fe13 portrait style, which is solid. the prerendered cutscenes look great, but the actual gameplay itself usually just looks fine. it's got that same chibi fe13 style which can look goofy after a prerendered cutscene, but it's not too bad.

-story-

the story is by far the most divisive part of fe14, and for good reason. i think the core plot beats are actually solid enough for a fire emblem story. i can get behind a family being torn apart and feeling betrayed by being abandoned by their sibling. i can buy being blind to a corrupt father's actions because he is your father. i can buy realizing your family is evil but being unable to rebel because of your duties to your nation and your family. what i can't buy is how it's executed. king garon is a comically evil villain with no scenes demonstrating anything that could even be misconstrued as loving. he is said to have "changed", but the is never a flashback or even a mention of the past to show what any of the family sees in him. it would've gone a long way to start the game with either a flashback or a prologue in another time to show that this king once did love his family. it makes his family which you spend so much time fighting feel oblivious to someone who literally cackles in front of them.

apart from the main dynamic being hard to swallow, the story itself feels like a lot of doing nothing. it feels like you go many maps just making a journey to a relevant place, leading to a lot of down time that could be used to examine the characters but isn't.

speaking of characters, let's talk about corrin. corrin is one of those peace-loving fire emblem protagonists who hates fighting but is forced to. they might be the single protagonist who mentions peace the most. corrin is in this decently unique position of being between a rock and a hard place, and a good writer would've used that to explore corrin's mentality, how the war personally affects them, and how this desire for peace reflects on others. this is fe14, though, and corrin ends up being an incredibly naive protagonist. there's a moment where corrin trusts someone who just deceived them for some reason and is later backstabbed. this entirely could've worked if, say, corrin wasn't betrayed, and instead this turncoat is truly affected. when he turns, he begs the king to spare corrin because "they're so kind", but why not change this moment to have him admit he was going to betray corrin but was actually moved enough to inform corrin and join him. that would've done a great deal to make peace actually solve problems. corrin is forced to fight their siblings, and it would've been neat if they could talk to their siblings and persuade them to stop fighting. corrin mostly just ends up incessantly prattling on about peace without the story using this in any interesting ways.

-final thoughts-

that's basically all i have to say about birthright. thinking about the story more made me dislike the game, but it's decently fun to just shut your brain off and solo the game with ryoma.

ai: the somnium files - nirvana initiative(aini) is the “direct” sequel to ai: the somnium files(aitsf) that i was honestly pretty excited to dive into. i (mostly) enjoyed aitsf, and i always love seeing characters i enjoy going on another adventure. unfortunately, i was very let down by aini. i’ll quickly talk on gameplay, art, and music, and then move into the story, since that is the meat of the game.

-gameplay, art, and music-

i don’t have much to say about these three because they aren’t really what you play the game for. the gameplay is pretty similar to the first game, and while the somniums look a bit better, they didn’t play any better. i never wanted to solve these somniums, and always just used a guide. i think if the time limit was removed, i may like them, but they just kinda annoy me. they feel like watered down escape rooms to me, and i just don’t like them. they, more often than not, felt like the game just wanted to have some gameplay to break up the text.

the art and models for this game are really like ok i guess? the models look solid, and the character design is mostly solid. there was really nobody where i was super impressed or into their character design besides maybe tama.

the music in this game is also mostly fine. there are a few tracks i quite like, lien and the masked woman’s somnium themes, but they mostly were just there for me. they weren’t bad or anything, but not super amazing either, similar to the first game.

-story-

quite possibly the biggest decider of if you like aini is the story, since that is what nearly everyone plays for. to be honest, i dug the story for about the first half. i’m again not a fan of the gaining of knowledge from other timelines, but i guess it’s fine and “will be explained in the sequel”(which is what i’d hoped would be true after aitsf, but you can’t always get what you want). tama and ryuki are the backbone of the first half of the game, and if they weren’t as charming as they are, the game would really suffer. most of the rest of the cast is kinda uninteresting besides them, and i really only cared because they had good interactions with ryuki.

a big problem i’d like to address now is how the game tries to not address aitsf to not spoil someone who has not played it by walking back on some good moments in aitsf, particularly date’s real face(and voice). this annoyed me to no end. it should not be the game’s fault that the audience hasn’t played the prequel, especially when it’s just as accessible as the sequel. a lot of the relationships that should’ve been explored more after date’s “arc” aren’t in favor of not spoiling aitsf, which really pissed me off. after all that date and mizuki learned about family in aitsf, this game should’ve developed their relationship more, but instead they do the exact opposite to avoid spoilers. it sucks.

let’s talk about the twist, the biggest reason i had a 180 on the story. the twist that the timeline is out of order is so incredibly convenient and unsatisfying. first, the game doesn’t even reveal it in an interesting way; they just have mama pause the game, stare at the game, and tell the player the twist. that might be the laziest thing ever written. it also undercuts the mystery of how bodies traveled through time, which was the coolest part of the mystery. the solution to the problem being that the audience was just lied to is so lame. it also relies on so many stupid coincidences to work besides that. mizuki needs to have a twin clone who looks, speaks, acts, thinks, etc EXACTLY like her six years in the past that nobody thought to tell her about. she was ALSO genetically modified(shit twist), wore the same clothes, had the same ai-ball, had a mother who works with mizuki and date but won’t tell them, are you getting the point? this twist is beyond contrived, and it completely turned me off of the game. ryuki also needs to get plot convenient crazy disease and then be cured at exactly the right moment so nothing breaks. i really hate the second half of this game. the actual killer(mame) isn’t even that bad, but the buildup is just so stupid that i lost any interest in the story before i could care about her generic villain motivations.

also ryuki diverge is the same as the alt:end in vlr and means nothing and was pretty undercooked.

-conclusion-

overall, aini is a game that starts strong but tanks halfways. the twist is just so bafflingly badly written that it kills the game for me. i will definitely be playing ai3, but my expectations will be incredibly low.