Ren_Ambrose

I think for me it's a several-way tie for many reasons. Night Breaks Through, Grima, and Lost in the Waves immediately spring to mind. Night Breaks Through was a twist i genuinely didn't see coming and I had a tough time getting through it. Grima is just fantastic thematically, Id ~ Purpose will always be my favorite final boss theme and Awakening holds a special place in my heart. The real oddball pick though you may be wondering about though is Lost in the Waves. Heirs of Fate, against all conceivable odds, managed to be a good story within Fates that used some of the underutilized concepts from the game. The map was genuinely challenging but fair, had great theming and good music, and felt like it had actual stakes to it. Was it perfect? Nah, but it had a lot of good going for it. I can't really speak for much else aside from Silver Snow and FE7, which just felt alright to me. Still working through Engage and the other routes for 3H, and only barely started PoR.

I was rereading to see what corners you had written yourself into and this particular line caught my eye. So I ran to good old Google translate on a whim and got quite the sensible chuckle out of me ...Dammit I'm invested again.

I realize I'm kinda necro-ing a dead thread here (but hey in the age of discord, aren't most forums way less busy than they used to be?) but I had some thoughts I wanted to try and put into words since the full experience is inaccessible. Fates was the first big thing I was excited for after getting into the series proper. I had just finished Awakening the year before and was HEAVILY invested in it, which my Miiverse backup can attest to. I only vaguely remember the leadup to release but after? Oh boy here we go. I got Conquest just to be a contrarian, cause everyone else I knew got Birthright. Only to, before even finishing chapter 3, cave and play Birthright first because the first few chapters do basically nothing to make you want to side with Nohr. Played through that, by the time I finished, Revelations was out so I picked that up too. Did Conquest next, then took a break for a while. After I got back and finished Revelations, I started grinding out on the other aspects of the game, like the dlc and whatnot. I was not expecting to get as into the online as I ended up doing. Visiting my friends' castles, making weird layouts and challenge battles for each other, the whole shebang. We all kinda knew the plot was terrible but the online features were surprisingly well-rounded, especially for a first party Nintendo title no less. But my fondest memories are actually from this forum. Dakota's War Journal, by @Alastor15243 who took an absolute trainwreck of a plot and made something great with it. I initially found the thread, binged reading all of it over the course of like, two days, and immediately shared it with my in-person friends, who did something similar but don't have accounts (as far as I know anyway). Once I caught up, which judging by my earliest posts in the thread, was a bit before Conquest endgame, I finally broke out of my shell a bit and stopped lurking so much. Some small part of me hopes that it'll continue one day but if they wanna just keep those memories as just that, I won't mind. I am curious how the battle on the castle I set up went though.

More progress on the homebrew front, apparently the NTR CFW that you use to stream your screens allows you to pull up a menu at any time and take a screenshot by pressing X and Y, even on older 3DS models. I haven't tested it yet but I would assume that the quality would be the same as saving them to Miiverse was.

Oh yeah, ask blogs are a huge thing on tumblr. Hell, even I run one. They're pretty fun, all things considered.

Speaking of the battle system, there's two ways you can have it work. Active has gauges going at all times, while Wait has gauges paused while you're in sub-menus. Each character gauge fills up depending on their individual speed stat, enemies included.

A tad off topic, but have you ever found the blog ask-frederick? They have an amazing understanding of the character and what makes him great. I feel ya there man.

While I understand that Awakening and Fates are flawed, that's not gonna stop me from loving them. Awakening will always be special to me as the game that introduced me to the franchise and my baby children Owain and Morgan but I digress. Having played both "eras" of the series at this point, I'm pretty confident in saying that everyone bashing the newer games are just blowing their flaws out of proportion (a bit less so with fates, as it was kinda butchered in localization). You've just gotta pick your battles, as every fanbase has their own groups that like to over-exaggerate their beef with certain parts of the series they love.

Much like Magus of Memery said, going in blind is the best way to experience it. New game plus unlocks after your first clear, and lets you carry over character levels, items, and money. There's not a ton of sidequests, but the ones that are there feel meaningful to the characters. The final dungeon unlocks in multiple eras, and much like the treasure chests, you can go through it from the furthest point to the earliest point to dupe loot. Character names can be changed later but iirc it doesn't unlock until you get free reign over travel, so don't name anyone something stupid if you wanna be immersed.

Holy... You really went all out, huh? I don't think I've ever seen a guide go this in-depth.

Good luck, my dude.

Okay so, I have some good news. If you have a n3DS, there's actually a way to stream your screens to your computer. It's a tad complicated to set up, but it allows for screenshots to be made again. I'll go ahead and DM you the guides I followed to get it working so you have that as an option.

Honestly, with how much of a trainwreck the story of Fates is, I'm surprised you've made this enjoyable of a story out of it. I'm sure something will come to you, given time. If it helps at all, homebrew is making a lot of headway, so saving screenshots might be a possibility in the near future.

Desperately uses Bifröst on the thread in an attempt to revive it

Yeah, it's kind of a tonal shift, isn't it? I never know what to do with my signatures in forums so I just tend to do whatever sticks.