Fire Emblem

Yeah, I want more super friendship and platonic endings in general. Give me endings where people start a business together, or travel the world, or publish a bestselling novel... I don't know, something different.

S-supports are there to serve the purposes of kids in games with those mechanics, but...meh, I'm personally not very interested in the romances most of the time since by their nature of being tied to the four conversations and the fact that supporting characters in general don't get much development in the main plot, they tend to be pretty rushed and underdeveloped. Plus there's the case that not everybody is gonna be interested in getting with everybody else or anyone in general, so everyone x everyone just isn't realistic. Give me some completely asexual characters. Maybe relationships that start, the partners find that they're incompatible, and break up?

And there are some pairings that, in the interest of good taste, should just plain not exist... But that's a whole different can of worms and I could spiel on that for a while.

I'd be down for another second-generation mechanic...in the style of Genealogy, with a time skip. The parents/first gen don't have to die necessarily, but please no more hyperbolic baby chambers or playing around with time travel. The latter was done better, but...there's only so many times you can get away with it without feeling hackneyed.

Edited by ILikeRobots on Jan 20th 2019 at 5:53:24 AM

I'm down for S-Supports with the absence of kids as long as they have meaning or don't feel forced. (Like anyone x Azama)

Agreed; I did like the variety of possible pairings, and had fun seeing what conversations each pairing had. Good times.

Really hope that Three Houses continues to have S-rank supports, and maybe have them bring up multiple opportunities to acknowledge any S-rank supports you've gotten.

Also hoping Three Houses will have dungeons like Echoes, though I'm predicting it won't have any. Maybe they can create a mode like Pikmin where one playable unit leads an army of mooks into the dungeons to find treasures while avoiding being eaten by the various monsters that lurk there.

Love the crack pairings. What I love about Heroes is setting up your occasional Crossover Ship, because what do you mean Sonya and Zelgius aren't an item.

I was disappointed that Fates never gave us Camilla/Sakura and Elise/Hinoka supports, because the ones the fans came up with where extremely heartwarming.

I'm happy that Warriors did give us those conversations, as well as Xander/Takumi and Ryoma/Leo.

Still find it funny that we got a Hinoka/Tharja conversation in Warriors. That was not a conversation I expected to see at all, but I'm so happy it exists.

Edited by dragonfire5000 on Jan 20th 2019 at 8:22:07 AM

Tharja/Olivia was another support pairing I was happy to hear warriors gave us.

Sometimes I feel like they just picked two names out of a hat to determine who got to support, and I actually approve of that method wholeheartedly.

I know Female Corrin is the more popular one in America (because Corrin's behavior overall is more acceptable coming from a woman than a man) but which one does Japan like more?

Female Corrin is more popular than Male Corrin in both fandoms iirc. Male Robin is the same way.

Another Warriors support I never expected was Oboro/Elise, but damn if it wasn't adorable. Oboro/Leo was also hilarious.

Takumi/Lissa is another personal favorite.

Chrom's support with Robin in Warriors is so good.

It expounds on a lot of his internal struggle. It highhandedly made me interested enough in Chrom to check out a lot of his supports in Awakening and DLC (before then he had come off as a pretty standard generic hero to me). Dang, did they not do the man justice in the main story, and that's kind of a shame. He shows so many more facets outside of the main plot.

Edited by ILikeRobots on Jan 20th 2019 at 9:08:14 AM

The Warriors supports in general were magnificent. Would've loved to see more.

Warriors has the best supports of all the 3DS games.

Niles and Frederick was amazing.

Too bad they didn't include the Lianna/Niles one. Lianna being driven crazy by Niles teaching Rowan knock-knock jokes was hilarious.

Speaking of laughs, Camilla/Tharja is another personal favorite. Camilla's "bird-watching?" line never fails to put a smile on my face.

And of course, Frederick/Leo is great as well. The sheer horror in Leo's voice once Frederick brings up his collar is so beautiful.

Edited by dragonfire5000 on Jan 20th 2019 at 9:12:15 AM

Oboro and Linde should have more supports, but what we get is good enough, especially with how anyone not named Marth, Caeda and Tiki get barely any dialogue and publicity in the Archanea games.

I wonder why there are no Warriors in Fates. There's actually no Axe/Bow class at all, despite basically every other combination imaginable being in.

Game balance?

How so? Are axes and bows particularly powerful in Fates?

I never really understood the whole promoted warriors getting bows thing myself.

Never really made sense from a progression or design standpoint. Hand axes are already the 2 range they'd want without the limitation of being only 2 range, and they can wield them from the jump.

Maybe it's because every promoted class needs to get one other weapon type upon promotion? Shrug.

Yeah, it's a real weird choice in most of the games. Would've probably made more sense for general stat-lines than the Axe/Tomes we got with Oni Chieftan, though. Also, it's kind of a godsend for Awakening. There's not really any other class that can get around both Pavise+ and Aegis+ at will with a single offensive stat without being super squishy.

I guess you could argue that Ax & Bow are already in the same weapon triangle but I wouldn't exactly call that a good argument either.

It sort of makes sense if you look at it from the perspective of powerful bows requiring enormous strength to operate.

Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light, chapter 18: The Sable Order

In search of the Starsphere and Lightsphere, the Akaneia Alliance travels to Raman Temple. Before they can enter, however, they must first cross Chiasmir Bridge, which is guarded by the elite knights of Grust.

This map is all about exploiting choke points. It consists of three horizontal peninsulas linked by long bridges. The Sable Order contains a great number of Horsemen, so the use of flying units is inadvisable. Hardin and Linde are benched as they have maxed out, so Barst and Wendell come along to fill in the gaps.

I begin by moving my air force south south to just out of range of the Horsemen on the middle spit while the rest go west to the bridge; along the way, a homeowner tells me that the temple contains three spheres - the Lightsphere, teh Starsphere, and the Geosphere. Well that's handy, I can get two spheres with one bow and also a third one into the bargain. Next turn, my air force attacks the central squad from behind, taking out both their Horsemen and bringing down their Paladin next turn. Meanwhile, Cain and Abel form a vanguard that intercepts the Cavaliers who tried to attack me.

My army moves south, Cain and Abel forming an effective vanguard on which the bulk of the enemy force breaks itself. A few turns in, Est appears and makes a beeline for Marth, who is at the eastern market buying weapons for those who need them. Est introduces herself to Marth, explaining that she took longer because she was trying to obtain Mercurius, the second treasure of Akaneia... which she did, and lets Marth have it. Since Est only has an Armourslayer, I buy her some silver lances while she's there; then, for the next several turns, I stick her in the arena with Maria next to her to provide healing. With silver weapons, Est is unbeatable in the arena, and proves to be the anti-Jagen, arriving toward the end of the game at a low level but having incredibly high growths. I bring her up to level 12, by which point she has the best Str of any of the Pegasus Knights.

Meanwhile at the bridges, Cain and Abel continue in their vanguard duties, breaking the waves of Sable Knights who try to attack - and a good thing too, because the enemy has an arseload of reinforcements, many of whom have Beat Killers, to the point that each of my Paladins have to tag out with Nabarl a few times for healing. Nabarl himself proves his worth, slaughtering a great number of Sable Knights when he swaps in. There's also a couple of Paladins who spawn on the fort in the central spit, behind my lines. The first time I played, one of them immediately killed Lena, so on my second attempt I moved Lena away and surrounded the fort to keep them in. Ogma and Merric made quick work of them.

When the reinforcements are spent, my army moves south to lure out the stragglers. By this point, Abel is 11 Exp away from level 20, and so I have him retreat and decide to bench him until the endgame. Cain, Nabarl, and Est take down the last few enemy units, and for the boss I bring the pegasisters together to test out the Triangle Attack for the first time in the series. Visually, it's not too impressive; the attacker just kind of vibrates a little and then gets an automatic crit. Still, it's another series staple that definitely has its uses as long as you can set it up. The boss drops a Knight's Crest, so Hardin will be subbing in for Abel next chapter in order to promote.

(As a side note, my first Fire Emblem game was Radiant Dawn, which does not explain the Triangle Attack at all. The first time I pulled it off was by complete accident - Marcia and Tanith happened to be adjacent to an enemy, who I then attacked with Sigrun. The flash and Sigrun calling for a Triangle Attack took my completely by surprise, leaving me thinking "Wait, what just happened?!")

Marth takes the castle, and Mr. Exposition tells me that the spheres are found inside, but it's said there is a powerful goddess inside who burns all who enter. Ooh, does this mean I get to meet Naga? Marth decides to only take a small force inside to minimise potential casualties.

New units: Est

Levelups: Cain, Abel, Palla, Catria, Est, Ogma, Nabarl, Merric

Previous instalments: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 -15 - 16 17

Bows deal extra damage to flying units. Do we even have axes that can do that?

I think axes only have bonus damage against armor with hammers. Although in Path of Radiance, there was an axe that was strong against all mounted units.