Fire Emblem: Fates - Complete Story Discussion

[Thane]

Hello everyone.

I'm finally done with the entire game and I have an urge to discuss what I often consider the most important part of a video game: the story. I created a thread not too long ago where I talked about Conquest and how I thought it definitely didn't live up to the hype of a complex storyline, to put it mildly. However, now that the third path has been released and beaten by a lot of people, I thought it would be appropriate to discuss the plot and the characters as a whole.

Before we begin, I'd like to mention a few things:

Firstly, this thread will contain spoilers, and since I'm giving ample warning, I won't write anything in spoiler tags, nor will I expect anyone else to. Please do not continue reading if you are afraid of spoilers.

Secondly, if you get upset by me, or anyone else "hating" on the game, please keep in mind that we're discussing the story here - I find the gameplay and music overall fantastic with only a few missteps here and there. I like the game as a whole.

Thirdly, my Japanese is pretty poor, so if I have misunderstood something or offer an insufficient description of something, it's probably because of that. Don't be afraid to tell me if I have misunderstood something.

Now, with that out of the way, I must admit that I'm a bit unsure as to how to proceed, seeing as we're talking about three different routes and in essence three different storylines. I think the best way would be to talk about different aspects and parts of the story; a deconstruction, if you will.

1. The choice

Let's start with the most important part of the game. I initially loved the choice, and it's presented absolutely brilliantly. If you pick any country over the other, the characters really express their disbelief in a believable way, and the game doesn't shy away from making you feel like an asshole - it's an unwinnable situation, accompanied by beautiful, sad music and a genuinely tragic situation.

...Well, unless you spent extra money on the third route.

.
If you pick the third option, then Kamui talks to Xander and Ryouma as if they were children, the fight starts soon afterward with Kamui attacking both armies and then fleeing to the Invisible Kingdom, where Aqua drops an impossible amount of exposition, telling the player all about how Hydra and how he's the true villain and the mastermind behind the war, essentially making the choice completely irrelevant in terms of the story.

Aqua also says that you can't talk about the Invisible Kingdom, or Touma, in the outside world because you'd turn into foam.

That is one of the stupidest, most contrived excuses I've ever heard - THAT'S the excuse for Aqua not telling everyone the truth? That's the only reason why the other two routes even exist to begin with? Because Aqua's gagged? It's not to make the third path more difficult story-wise, because everyone's hellbent on accusing you of being a traitor anyway, and they'd have no reason to believe Kamui if they started talking about an invisible kingdom and evil dragons. This was just their explanation for Aqua not telling you anything in the other two routes.

There are so many better ways they could've handled this. I'm no writer, but wouldn't it be much better if Aqua didn't know everything from the get-go and also had to find out the truth? As it stands now, Aqua exists more or less only to dump exposition, and she's got very little character; I almost forget that she's in the game, much less had a backstory of being kidnapped and raised in Hoshido, and the game itself seems to forget it as well. In the other two routes, Aqua just follows you without any real reason to, and she never even tries to tell you the truth; wouldn't that be her number one concern? Couldn't she just write us a note or something?

-

Anyway, from one point to another, but which is also relevant to the choice: The Hoshido siblings. The choice is further dilluted because the big deal about choosing Hoshido over Nohr was because of your blood ties but hey surprise, there are none, so now you can safely bang them to your hearts content!

Seriously though, this was such an idiotic move on their part, and it was a plot twist that people started speculating about the very same day the second trailer was released. I've always found it funny how some people claim that waifus destroyed Fire Emblem, but here the story is actually weakened because it seems Intelligent Systems prioritized being able to marry every single character of the opposite gender over genuine intrigue - unless you think the whole "oh hey I got a letter from mom saying we're not related let's bang okay?" a satisfying enough explanation.

To conclude, the premise is absolutely stellar, and in the beginning it seems very well executed, but it's so polluted by stupid story and gameplay decisions to the point where it doesn't even feel like a difficult choice anymore, since one is right - the other two will just take you to different maps.

2. The royal families


I'll keep this brief, and I can summerize my thoughts fairly quickly: why the symmetry, and why so many?

With the exception of Leon and Takumi, the royals feel very underdeveloped as characters. If there had been fewer of them, there could've been more interactions between them as well as a more fleshed out story - I know this is incredibly subjective, and since my Japanese is so poor I'm hesitant to talk much about characters even though I've read supports, but I can't for the life of me see the reason for several of the royals even being in the game. Hinoka in particular feels incredibly bland and forgettable, and she's probably the one who does the least in terms of story in all three routes; she feels like a complete afterthought.

"But Thane, you like Awakening and we all know Awakening's characters sucked!" - Awakening had several bad characters, and I agree that Chrom felt underdeveloped, but the game never forgot he even existed. The big selling point of this game was the royal families and the story, just look at the "Iwata asks" and you'll see it's all they talk about, and they feel so...lifeless. I should also point out that this argument is completely irrelevant, since we're discussing Fates' story, but I wanted to prematurely explain my take on this, since I'm sure someone would've brought it up sooner or later.

Leon and Takumi are nice though, and those two have a more romantic support than all other "romantic" supports combined.

3. The villains

Well...if you can call them that.

Seriously, I know Fire Emblem doesn't have a long history of complex villains, but these guys take the cake. Iago and Ganz hound Kamui in both Conquest and Birthright in slightly different ways before being unceremoniously killed - Iago even survives to beg for mercy in both routes before being killed by Leon...in both routes. Then in the third route they're just swatted like flies fairly early on without any real impact on the story.

See, there's my main beef with them - what on earth are they even in the game for? What exactly do they offer? Sure, Iago is at least good at what he does but...what is it, exactly? They're so generically evil it hurts, and even though they survive for quite a while in the two original routes, they never develop as characters or accomplish anything, and they're so unimortant that Ganz dies without being able to have any dying words and Elise cheers Leon on after having murdered Iago in Conquest so...why weren't they just killed earlier? This is partially the reason why Conquest feels like it doesn't have a story and never gets anywhere, because Iago and Ganz are being annoying and the ragtag bunch of misfits can't do anything about it because they've got that world's version of diplomatic immunity.

This brings me to the next villain, namely our favorite Flubber since Flubber, King Garon.

...Who also doesn't do much. I think the third route actually nailed his character perfectly. If you don't know what happens, I'll give you the the complete rundown.

You mess up Hydra, who says he needs more power and thus teleports Garon, who has been seen about once in the third route earlier cackling maniacally, to his side. Garon offers his body to Hydra, but Hydra eats him instead - the siblings each say one line and after that he's not mentioned again. That's it.

You know, for a guy we've seen turn into a giant dragon, a slime monster and (I imagine) having his powers boosted by Hydra, and being the king of Nohr whose manipulation is essentially what drives the entire story in the first place, you'd think he'd be a bit more...important? Prominent? Developed? As far as I know, we get to know very, very little about the real Garon's death and how Nohr has changed, and the siblings talk very little about living under this tyrant.

"But Thane, the real Garon was dead and this was just the body controlled by Hydra, of course we can't see the real Garon" - well, I did find Mikoto and Sumeragi's return very cheesy and rushed (why couldn't they have taken Iago and Ganz' place? Would've had much more impact than the generic assclowns we killed without blinking), but Garon is super important to the story. Also, this sort of leads me to the core of the problem I have with this game: why was Hydra necessary? Why couldn't this game have been only two routes where you had to live with the consequences of your choice? Why wasn't Garon simply a misguided King?

I'm not the most eloquent person as you may have noticed since, when talking about the villains, all I've done is asking "why?", but I'll try to explain what I wish Garon could have been.

In The Legend of Zelda, you often face Ganon or Ganondorf, who's often portrayed as a very powerful, evil wizard, and that's more or less it. He didn't start getting a personality until Ocarina of Time, I believe, but the point where everybody I know started loving him was in Wind Waker. He talks solemnly about being the king of a desert people (this was known very early on in the franchise), and how the wind always carried destruction where he lived, either it scorched the land during the day or pierced their homes during the night. However, in the neighboring land of Hyrule, the land which he had tried to conquer so many times before, the winds carried something else.

This speech lasts about half a minute, and suddenly everything falls into place and you feel genuine pity for an immortal guy who everyone just considered a generic bad guy.

Garon, needless to say, has no such moment. We have very little information of how he was before, what drives him or even how the siblings react to him changing. We know they fear him, since Camilla was even prepared to kill Kamui on his behalf under the pain of death, but that's about it. I wish we had gotten to know him in Conquest, but instead we got a generic manipulated bad guy and a team of spineless morons.

4. Final thoughts

Believe it or not, I don't hate the story, I merely dislike it, and I'm so underwhelmed and disappointed, and I feel absolutely nothing towards it. There are several moments and characters that are portrayed very well, but they're too few and generally unimportant to make much of a difference.

One of the main problems is that the game constantly tries to have the cake and eat it too, like with being able to bang the Hoshido siblings. We can also see that in the third path, where all the important characters live, just in case any family member's death upset someone in another route.

Speaking of the route system, I like it in theory, but it's made absolutely pointless by the de facto best one where you get everything and everyone. It's also no coincidence that it's the path you can't buy separately that is the "best" one, and I believe the other two routes suffered further because content was removed fairly late into development to give people incentive to buy the third path. I've got no proof of this, but it would explain why there is so much filler especially in Conquest and why so very, very little is revealed.

If there had only been two more developed routes, fewer, better written siblings with more interactions between them and there was no true enemy which made one route more meaningful than the others, then this game could have been brilliant. As it stands, I ask myself a lot of "what ifs", but none of them are what the developers had in mind.

[NeonZ]

Maybe the player is actually meant to ignore the other stories, rather than looking at each one as unveiling the truth of the other route? The Invisible Kingdom and Nohr actually seem to have a few contradictions that aren't related to Kamui's choice, like Gunther not being possessed by Hydra in Nohr or Aqua, when they do briefly go into the invisible Kingdom in Nohr, never revealing all the secrets like she does in the Invisible Kingdom route.

Rereading the script for Nohr chapter 15 though, the Invisible Kingdom curse is mentioned there.

Thinking about it, I guess Hoshido and IK fit without problems, and the one standing out oddly here is Nohr, which suggests that there might have been some last minute revisions at some point...

Edited July 12, 2015 by NeonZ

[JupiterKnight]

Honestly I think just being surprised that would be it for Garon on the third route and nothing else might fit just because they know he's a corpse puppet used by Anankos. Whatever decent or good traits the real Garon had were crushed after years of brainwashing and meddling with his corpse. All that remains is a goo monster loyal to a nutjob.

I do want to know if that's a wormhole or a black hole Anankos made at the end.

[Luankachu]

1. The choice

-

Anyway, from one point to another, but which is also relevant to the choice: The Hoshido siblings. The choice is further dilluted because the big deal about choosing Hoshido over Nohr was because of your blood ties but hey surprise, there are none, so now you can safely bang them to your hearts content!

Seriously though, this was such an idiotic move on their part, and it was a plot twist that people started speculating about the very same day the second trailer was released. I've always found it funny how some people claim that waifus destroyed Fire Emblem, but here the story is actually weakened because it seems Intelligent Systems prioritized being able to marry every single character of the opposite gender over genuine intrigue - unless you think the whole "oh hey I got a letter from mom saying we're not related let's bang okay?" a satisfying enough explanation.

To conclude, the premise is absolutely stellar, and in the beginning it seems very well executed, but it's so polluted by stupid story and gameplay decisions to the point where it doesn't even feel like a difficult choice anymore, since one is right - the other two will just take you to different maps.

Personally, I'm okay with Kamui Corrin not being related to the Hoshido siblings. After all, they are still family because of Mikoto's and Sumeragi's marriage. And also, from what I've seen in some videos not once is Kamui's Corrin's bloodline mentioned as a reason to side with Hoshido in chapter 6. When you side with Hoshido, Kamui's Corrin's talks with MarXander about how he's seen the evils Garon's done. That's the only reason s/he sides with Hoshido.

On the other hand, I find the reason for siding with Nohr really weak, specially considering how Garon already had tried to kill Kamui Corrin twice and succeeded in destroying an entire town, as well as killing Mikoto and Gunter (I know that Gunter returns later, but Kamui Corrin doesn't know that). Usually, I'd favor Loyalty over Bloodline, but considering how obviously evil Nohr/Garon is, siding with Hoshido makes more sense (in my opinion). Even if you side with Nohr Kamui Corrin says that he doesn't agree with Garon's actions. I don't know much about the story, but from what I've read, Kamui Corrin doesn't rebel against Garon until much later in the game and his/her actions/inactions led to the death of several innoccent people. Didn't they advertize the Nohr route as "changing an empire from within" and "with a more complex storyline than Hoshido's"?

[JupiterKnight]

Apparently that was only Nintendo America advertising it as that, just like they made it sound like its all going to be one game instead of two.

I never saw them joining Nohr for anything beyond wanting to be with the siblings they know and cared for. Kamui barely knows the Hoshido siblings but grew up all his life with the Nohr ones. So he stays in order to be with them.

Also Nohr itself is not evil, as you can clearly tell by all the Nohr units you can recruit. It's just lead by a goo monster, his loyal henchmen, and has a disgusting thug named Ganz.

Edited July 12, 2015 by JupiterKnight

[Hatsuoki]

I was going to mention the choice as well. I think in the localization, it might be changed to joining because of being a royal of Hoshido instead of joining because of blood ties.

[senketsu]

And also, from what I've seen in some videos not once is Kamui's Corrin's bloodline mentioned as a reason to side with Hoshido in chapter 6.

[/size]

But it pushes "blood-related" on the player. What kamui says is just to say to tell the player "hey I'm not just using blood for my choice".

[NeonZ]

Apparently that was only Nintendo America advertising it as that, just like they made it sound like its all going to be one game instead of two.

No, NoA advertised it as "revolutionizing an unruly kingdom" in the original Direct that revealed the routes. "Changing from inside" was what was actually said in the Japanese Direct. Either way, with the title "Conquest" they're clearly attempting to move away from that image now.

It's not like Kamui's actions are completely ineffective before the final chapters though, a bunch of people who would be killed by Nohr's army usually are spared by him. It's just sometimes that Gunz and McBeth pop up and overrule your orders

(or the Hoshido people just kill themselves, like Takumi and Ryoma).

[JupiterKnight]

Having seen the scene where Takumi falls to his doom, he clearly has the black/blue/purple mist like stuff everyone under Anankos control tends to have. So it feels more like Anankos assumed direct control to kill him.

That said I agree about what you said that they do spare or save people who normally get killed because Kamui isn't there to stop it. It just doesn't always work out because Iago and Ganz are jerks.

[Uchu~]

Hopefully everything that doesn't make sense in Fates is all because of the fact that we can't read Japanese. I'm sure theres a lot more explanation and stuff like that, that we just don't see due to that fact. I know basic Japanese but there's no way I would be able to read AND understand every detail in the game. When its actually in English next year, I'm sure all the missed details will be explained. As for the lies NoA gave us..well maybe they had an idea and that changed? I am trying to look at the positive side of this while also realizing that no matter what, in every game, there's gonna be flaws.

As for the non-blood relativity thing, I think it takes away from the story but I'll probably just pretend that you are blood related to save that fact.

Im sure NoA will fix everything wrong with this game.

[Icy Toast]

I haven't played the third route yet, but based on my experiences with the other two, I share your disappointment, Thane.

I largely agree with the points you've already brought up, except perhaps for the second one. I don't think the royal siblings were all that bad, to be honest, and I feel that it's a bit unfair to compare them to lords in previous games, since that's not really the kind of position they're in. That being said, I can't help but agree with the 'why so many'-sentiment.

There's another aspect of the story that really disappointed me, but I'm having trouble putting it into words. I guess one way to put it would be to say that if a good story is like a scenic trail walk, this one feels like we're being taken on a strictly controlled guided tour through an exhibition of cardboard stage props. No touching, or they might fall over. No diverting from the tour route, or you might accidentally find out about how they never bothered to paint the backside of these things. No time for questions, we're on a tight schedule.

Many of the places and people in the game just seem to pop into existance right before our protagonist arrives, and when we move on to the next chapter they just seem to disappear into thin air. Most of the smaller countries and their allegiances aren't mentioned until we get there, and nothing ever happens to them again after we've left. And I guess that would be totally fine (albeit not exactly the height of compelling storytelling) if this was just a story about Kamui's personal journey, but apparently this is a story about a horrible war between Nohr and Hoshido that affects the entire continent, and this Kamui person is, for whatever reason, actually leading an army that plays a decisive role in this war. He's a terribly incompetent commander by the way, relying on others to tell him what country he's led his army into this time, but that's a different problem altogether.

But the thing is, the game doesn't really tell me much at all about the state of this war and its effects on the world. The choice in chapter 6 tells me the Hoshido path is about 'defending Hoshido', but after just two chapters in Hoshido we basically call it a day as far as defending our homeland goes and leave the country to search blindly for our dear onii-sama. What will happen to Hoshido (which has just lost its ruler and its magical protection barrier thing) while the royal kids and their troops are gone even though we've apparently got Nohrian troops encroaching on our territory? Noone seems to care. Does that mean the initial attack has been successfully repelled? Or are we simply leaving the rest up to Yukimura? All the game really tells us is that fighting took place near the border, but the outcome of this battle apparently isn't worth discussing. Onii-sama's whereabouts are simply too important, we don't have time to care about the safety of our people.

The rest of the story is no different. What will Fuuma - a hostile state right next to our borders, mind you - do after we've killed its ruler early on in the Hoshido route? Doesn't it seem sort of likely that they're going to start open warfare on Hoshido now that everyone knows whose side they are on? Or were the troops we defeated in that forest all they had? How big is this Fuuma place anyway? Noone seems to care. The characters don't care, the writers don't care, and presumably I'm not supposed to care either. Oh, and by the way, I seem to remember there being this Nohrian army in the harbour when we boarded our ship for Amusia after this chapter, probably waiting for their chance to march into Hoshido - I honestly can't be sure because the game never even tells me where this harbour was or even where the Hoshidan border is - but of course noone seems to be bothered by that in the slightest. And you know what, I can't really blame them. Hardly anything ever happens in the rest of the world when Kamui isn't looking. But as a reader I can't help but wonder what all of these things mean in the grand scheme of the war, and the fact that the characters never ask any of these questions and just rush ahead to the next under-developed plot point only ends up making me feel disconnected from their story.

The result is (for me personally at least) easily the most uninteresting war in the most uninteresting world ever conceived in any FE game. It doesn't feel like there's substance to any of it. It doesn't feel like an actual world, it's way too obvious that it's all just a collection of disposable stage settings for the Heroic Tale of Noble Lord/Lady Kamui and His/Her Many Brothers and Sisters. So why should I care even a little bit about what happens to any of the continent of...

...come to think of it, does this continent even have a name?

It's a shame really, since a lot of this could've been fixed (or at least improved) simply by adding some decent world map narration to flesh out the countries/duchies/clans/territories and their political and military situations or some basic background on their (recent) history, like previous games in the series would have done.

[The DanMan]

One of the main problems is that the game constantly tries to have the cake and eat it too.

"Constantly tries to have its cake and eat it too."

...I think you just struck to the very core of things and summed up all of Fates' problems in a nutshell right there.

[NeonZ]

It's a shame really, since a lot of this could've been fixed (or at least improved) simply by adding some decent world map narration to flesh out the countries/duchies/clans/territories and their political and military situations or some basic background on their (recent) history, like previous games in the series would have done.

I think IS must have done some marketing research that found that kind of narration to be disliked by part of the gaming public. It was completely eliminated from Awakening, in spite of that game being meant as an homage to the entire series mixing features from many past titles, and this game, which generally has longer story scenes than Awakening, still kept them out.

At least the countries and locations were there though and clearly had some characteristic points even if they don't play into the story. The lack of an overall political map in Awakening seemed to lead them to make no attempt at all at giving any kind of unique characteristics to most villages seen through that game. I thought this was an improvement over that at least, although obviously it still falls behind in world building compared to the games with narration.

[Ryo]

Maybe the player is actually meant to ignore the other stories, rather than looking at each one as unveiling the truth of the other route? The Invisible Kingdom and Nohr actually seem to have a few contradictions that aren't related to Kamui's choice, like Gunther not being possessed by Hydra in Nohr or Aqua, when they do briefly go into the invisible Kingdom in Nohr, never revealing all the secrets like she does in the Invisible Kingdom route.

Yeah, I found this strange too, even though it took much longer to actually find Gunther in Conquest.

[senketsu]

Maybe each route is a different outrealm.

Meaning aqua doesn't know anything in nohr/hoshido and negating any other contradictions. That makes a lot of things, make a little more sense.

[Nyanko]

The third route just sounds so blah to me. I don't care about Aqua, so abandoning the two sets of siblings and running off with her does not interest me at all. I won't get any of the characters I really like until the game's halfway over, and what I've seen of the story is a bit disappointing to me. I'll still get it, of course, but I'm just not really excited for it anymore.

Actually, I'm disappointed with things from each route. I hate that the Hoshido siblings aren't Kamui's blood siblings. That really screws up the Choice for me. It's not nearly as heart-wrenching now. Actually it's not a hard choice now at all. There's no reason to pick Hoshido for me. I hate that Nohr's story is supposedly bad. They had a really good idea, and it sounds like they wasted it.

Edited July 13, 2015 by Sir Frederick

[Mighty Kamina]

I actually enjoyed Nohr's story for the most part. My biggest issue with it was the crystal ball thing breaking after chapter 15 (Even then, I thought previous FEs have done worse things like the Blood Pact), but aside from that I was interested in it as a whole. Kamui following Garon's orders until he can expose him didn't really bother me, as I don't believe the other Royal siblings would have believed Kamui without proof, and the only way Kamui could openly defy Garon's orders was to leave to Hoshido, which he had already decided against. (Kamui decides to try to save lives while following Garon's orders) It was more like you played as noble general #457 until you got your chance to expose Garon's true form, which I was down for as Fire Emblem has never done something like that before. Could the world have been developed better? Absolutely. I think there could have been improvement, but I did enjoy it.

I think one of the things that is triggering backlash is that Kamui isn't really a revolutionary in the Nohr path like they were advertised to be. They follow Garon's orders while trying to save as many people as they can, until the can expose him. I was a bit bothered by the Hoshido bias though, and I don't doubt that it will see some revisions in the North American release.

Not being blood related to the Hoshido siblings does piss me off though. Making you able to S rank them undermines any reason to join Hoshido.

Edited July 13, 2015 by Monado Boy

[Alazen]

If there had only been two more developed routes

Actually, I would say that the game could have been better served by cutting and/or consolidating 2 Paths. As it stands now, the Hoshido Path apparently has the strongest narrative of the 3. I suggest ditching the "CHOICE" gimmick and picking one of the two routes and a revised 3rd Path for a redone Fates.

Anyway, as I said in the Nohr topic, Corrin would have worked better if he was portrayed as an enthusiastic conquerer. It would make the differences in characterization between the Hoshido and Nohr Corrin's gone or less, along with addressing other shenanigans.

Edited July 13, 2015 by Alazen

[Thane]

Actually, I would say that the game could have been better served by cutting and/or consolidating 2 Paths. As it stands now, the Hoshido Path apparently has the strongest narrative of the 3. I suggest ditching the "CHOICE" gimmick and picking one of the two routes and a revised 3rd Path for a redone Fates.

Anyway, as I said in the Nohr topic, Corrin would have worked better if he was portrayed as an enthusiastic conquerer. It would make the differences in characterization between the Hoshido and Nohr Corrin's gone or less, along with addressing other shenanigans.

That's what I meant, if there were two paths that were better developed instead of three sloppy routes thrown together. I apologize if I didn't express that clearly.

Maybe each route is a different outrealm.

Meaning aqua doesn't know anything in nohr/hoshido and negating any other contradictions. That makes a lot of things, make a little more sense.

That is also a downright terrible idea from a story-telling standpoint. If that were the case, then there would be no choice since you'd just follow the world in which Kamui picked one of the three options, rather than leaving it up to you, which is the whole selling point of the game. It'd also make the game feel even more disjointed as there would be even less common ground for it to explore.

A lot of people don't like Outrealms, at least not in terms of actually telling a serious story, which is one of the reasons why so many are upset Owain, Severa and Inigo showed up out of nowhere.

And as for Icy Toast's reply, I agree with you wholeheardetly on the issue of the duchies and smaller countries. They just feel so irrelevant since they more or less disappear from the plot entirely after you've visited them. Were we supposed to be sad when Izana died in the third route? I mean, we met him like once in each route before that, and then he joined us in My Castle but could only be supported by Kamui.

Edited July 13, 2015 by Thane

[Paperblade]

This reeks of executive meddling to get $$$

[Refa]

Well, so much for that new writer. Hopefully this isn't a pattern (I can already hear people talking about the FE cycle).

[JupiterKnight]

If I remember right he only wrote the drafts for each route.

[The DanMan]

Well, so much for that new writer. Hopefully this isn't a pattern (I can already hear people talking about the FE cycle).

If I remember right he only wrote the drafts for each route.

Yep. 500 pages per route. Hoshido conceived first. And that's all he did on the project. I'm tempted to pin most of the blame on IS's "writers".

[CocoaGalaxy]

Maybe my expectations are the ones at fault, but it generally feels like there's not enough talking (aka serious plot) in the games, but it may just be me.

An extreme example? After Invisible Kingdom Chapter 27, there is ZERO DIALOGUE in the Endgame. ZERO. NOT A SINGLE WORD SPOKEN. In the freaking Endgame. I am extremely disappoint.

(Something like that, at least)

They just throw you in and fight. I suppose it's not that bad, but you don't even get the customary "everyone gets a line before the final boss" thing.

Aside from that....honestly once everything (and I mean everything) relevant has been translated, I suppose I'll comment, for now, I really don't feel like commenting on something in a language I don't know

[Arch]

Welcome to "the future" of FE. Our children will travel back in time to warn us of this great calamity.

Edited July 13, 2015 by Arch