If you could change one major thing about the plot in every Fire Emblem installment, what would it be?

[Thane]

Hello everyone.

I don't think it's much of a secret that I'm not the biggest fan of Intelligent System's writing, and that includes all of the localized game and not just the most recent ones. The list of issues I have with every installment can be made long, but I'm not here to whine, but to discuss.

My question to you is this: if you could change one major thing about the plot in every Fire Emblem installment, what would it be and why? How would it impact - and hopefully improve - the story?

I'll start from Blazing Sword, since I cut the NES titles which I've played more slack due to the technical limitations, and I won't bring up the games I haven't played in a while or don't have a great suggestion for.

Blazing Sword: change Nergal's modus operandi

I considered Blazing Sword's story to be the worst one until Fates came along, and most of it can be chalked up to Nergal being a snoozefest. The guy offers little in terms of personality or even threat, as he keeps letting everything slip through his fingers, but the most offensive thing is how he goes about reaching his goals: killing people off screen to gather invisible energy that can be used to do whatever the plot demands. He usually does this by employing literal emotionless creatures created by him, and just like their master, they also lack anything that makes them interesting.

If Nergal had been more active and personally involved with the plot, and had he been more consistent in his actions (not letting people getting away, his Morphs not having more important things to take care of than to deliver the things Nergal need to fulfill his goals, etc.), all of Blazing Sword would've felt a lot more threatening and immediate, as opposed to feeling like a road trip with three BFF's.

Path of Radiance: make Ashnard more involved with the plot

Ashnard is not recognized by Ike until the final chapter. Instead, we've got the Black Knight supplying people with literal plot armor in the background. Honestly, I don't even understand why the Black Knight really exists when walking around being a force of nature should've been Ashnard's job.

Radiant Dawn: remove the Blood Pact

This'll probably be my least controversial suggestion. I rather like Radiant Dawn's story and all of the character interactions it offers, but the charm of the story - fighting playable characters with different armies - wears off when one party is forced into it, as opposed to doing what they believe is right. Had that been the case, then the chaotic nature of the plot been far more palpable, and Ashera's appearance would've been more of a "damn, did we fuck up" as opposed to "way to go, irredeemably evil, corrupt politicians".

Awakening: focus on one of the three arcs

Awakening's plot is fragmented, which is a shame since all three arcs could've been great games had they been given the chance to shine. Instead, a lot of things feel half-assed. I personally would've liked seeing Walhart being the main villain, with the Shepherds having to drive him and his forces off of their continent before going to Valm and defeat him there.

Walhart had the most potential of all the villains in Awakening, having no bullshit dragging down his character, with his only problem being a rushed filler arc, rather than any fault with his own character. A clash of ideologies between him and Chrom would've been far more interesting than defeating yet another evil dragon.

Fates: remove Valla

Removing Valla would almost automatically solve some of Fates many major issues: Anankos wouldn't exist, Garon would actually have to be his own character and the story could focus on the main conflict as opposed to completely removing the supposed theme of the story out of the equation.

This would also help individual characters, such as Xander coming across as less of an idiot for not noticing his father is a literal monster as opposed to a figurative one, and Azura wouldn't need to be a plot device and exposition bot with legs.

Anyway, those are my ideas: what are yours?

[HK Motendra]

Have Masked Marth be the ACTUAL Marth. Twas a dream come true when I first saw Awakening, but only to realize it was just a dream.

Awakening: focus on one of the three arcs

Awakening's plot is fragmented, which is a shame since all three arcs could've been great games had they been given the chance to shine. Instead, a lot of things feel half-assed. I personally would've liked seeing Walhart being the main villain, with the Shepherds having to drive him and his forces off of their continent before going to Valm and defeat him there.

Walhart had the most potential of all the villains in Awakening, having no bullshit dragging down his character, with his only problem being a rushed filler arc, rather than any fault with his own character. A clash of ideologies between him and Chrom would've been far more interesting than defeating yet another evil dragon.

Branching off this, instead of all the paralogues being the 2nd generation, I'd rather that each paralogue be flashback chapters to give context to every possible plot point. For example, Gangrel mentioning Chrom's Father's crusade agaisnt Plegia (I forget what Chapter it was first introduced), Lon'qu losing to Masked Marth, Cordelia's survivor's guilt from her entire squadron dying or even the slaughtering of the Taguel, as CH6x.

For the 2nd gen, I feel they should only be available come later in the game, in the Grima arc (or rather, in that sequel of the story, to continue with the idea of each arc being its own separate thing)

With the use of flashback chapters I feel it could give characters a chance to flesh out a little, though there are some that are harder to imagine what point they could go off on, such as Maribelle, Ricken, Sully&Stahl, but its not to say that each and EVERY unit has to have a CH to them self.

Its a thought, anyway.

[Magical Glace]

FE6: Take Jahn's exposition dump out of Chapter 24, and instead disperse the backstory information it provided throughout the story. A more gradual reveal of the truth, in other words.

FE7: only revive Ninian when she has an A with Eliwood, having Nils do the Fimbulvetr thing in her place if she doesn't.

FE8: Can't think of much that can change here... I suppose the mechanics of Lyon's possession should be more consistent between routes. On one route, Eirika's, Formortiis clearly has complete control over Lyon, while in the other, Lyon seems to have some degree of control that he uses to warn the twins about the possession and tell them he's not himself anymore.

FE9: Do more with Ashnard. He's a bore as he is.

FE10: Remove the blood pact, and don't have Ranulf say "Zelgius is the Black Knight" with the player seeing it. Have him tell Ike, but fade out the scene before he reveals it.

FE11: admittedly it's been a while since I played FE11 and it's story is the series' least memorable, but I'd say make Medeus more directly involved in the plot.

FE13: Scrap both the Valm and Grima arcs in full and make the entire game about Gangrel. Everything in FE13 was rushed and Gangrel's arc was probably the best of the three.

FE14: Remove everything related to Revelations and make the story actually what it was advertised as.

[NinjaMonkey]

Path of Radiance: Actually put some twists in the story that can't be seen coming from a mile away.

Radiant Dawn: Have the LEA a bit more involved in the story, I suppose. Other than that, nothing.

Awakening: It's fine as it is I guess.

Edited October 30, 2016 by NinjaMonkey

[Lady Sansa]

No one plays these games for the plot so who cares

[Punished Dayni]

Sorry, going to be doing a lot of ranting here.

FE1/3.1/11: Dohlr as a whole never feels connected to Marth's arc for most of the game, but essentially every other nation is dragged in as a result, which makes one edit a bit difficult on this. Marth's serious meandering for the first half doesn't help. I'd straighten the first part out and give more meat to facing Dohlr.

FE3.2/12: The start is kinda forced. Essentially, Marth gets involved in the fight because Bollox 1 (Lang) exists, and it all happens in the first place because Bollox 2 (Hardin) feels severely slighted that his dream didn't work out. I'd actually fix this opener. Counting the remakes, the Assassin arc isn't a big problem to me, though Chris himself is another problem. Rewrite Chris, and fix Marth.

Overall, Medeus himself is essentially a threat hovering over the games that isn't the focus for most of either title, and really only matters in the last quarter if even that (Much as I'll propose something similar later). Also, Gharnef's existence is essentially A Wizard Did It. But evilly.

FE4: The most obvious fix right now? Make that period from chapter 9 to 10 matter more. I'm thinking a chapter might be missing here. That aside, Milietos also feels like just some summer home for villains in the story.

FE5: Reydrick and Velf (Or whatever he's supposed to be called) really don't matter to the story in the grand scheme of things at all, and either fixing that or changing the villains would help. No wonder that one hack exists with Blume.

Judgral as a whole has one big stickler, however covering it is big spoilers for FE4/5

It concerns the aftermath of the Big Barhara Barbecue. Namely that it's killing power is highly questionable.

We see Levin walking around, we know Aideen is alive (Lester and Lana confirm it), Sylvia, Lachesis (actually not sure on Nanna's age here) and Fury (and as a result whoever their partner is) have to have survived to have their second child regardless, Brigged apparently washed up in Fiana with amnesia and a pact similar to Levin's that removes her mark as a holy blood warrior (Seriously, this is stupid to me, and there appears to be no explanation to how this works. It's called the Gesh though!), and depending on what you accept from stuff like Treasures as canon, Azel, Claude and Tiltyu have to be alive too.

Sure, only one was hit by Falflame, but there's a lot of Meteoring going on. The fact that up to 14 if not more can survive makes me doubt the efficacy, and the fact this information is spread out honestly means that the impact is ruined over time.

FE6: Fix why the villains themselves want to conquer the world. Zephiel's main reason is dented by 7, Jahn is someone who just tortures a young dragon and claims they're above emotion and Idoun is just a puppet of a dragon (I actually had to look up her name as I'd forgotten).

FE7: Nergal's involvement is one thing. However, the way he does things is the bigger issue. Explain why exactly he's wasting his "quintessense" on some pretty stupid plans, and improve both those uses and his involvement overall. He literally just chases after Ninian and doesn't kill everyone afterwards at one point. Yeah, Nergal is a bit of a dumbass.

FE8: Eirika's middle arc feels highly irrelevant. Simple as. Ephraim's is at least constantly marching through the Grado army.

I could argue about the hero's effectiveness in the GBA era (esp. Roy and Ephraim), but that'd be more whinging than anything.

FE13: Honestly, picking one big fix could be tough. There are issues across all arcs, and really the easiest big thing might have been to just cut the dragon resurrection stuff out entirely. You could have it so that Plegia then take advantage of Ylisse/Regna Ferox running about in Valm to enforce their rule on Neo Archanea. The dragon in this case would be a threat that they have to prevent similar to FE6 to be honest (which if we're making one change, we still have to keep for the sake of the children. Unfortunately.), but by allowing more time to focus on the other parts we can give the Valm arc in particular some much needed improvements. Bring the number of chapters with Risen down if even keep them at all too.

(Little surprised I wrote as much on Awakening, as I don't really get as mad at it compared to some issues I have with writing in other titles)

[NJ7009]

FE6: Improve character motivations. Zephiel is mostly only interesting to me because of FE7.

FE7: Give Lyn a bit more to do in the main plotline, besides being a head that talks.

FE8: Don't have Eirika give away the stone to Lyon like an idiot.

FE9: Combine the Black Knight and Ashnard into one entity. By the end of the game, I had more hatred for BK than Ashnard and that is just wrong.

FE10: Give the Dawn Brigade more screen time and remove/rework the plot devices (e.g. Micaiah's farsight, Blood Pact).

FE13: Give Chrom more of a role, since he is shafted a lot in favour of Robin. Also, have the choices players make more meaningful.

FE14: Remove Corrin.

Edited October 30, 2016 by NJ7009

[Jedi]

Seeing as I play more for the gameplay, I dno if I'll be able to contribute much but here goes.

FE3: I like mostly how it does things for its time, but I'd have liked to see more of a transition into what Hardin became and maybe more interaction between Marth and Fallen Hardin.

FE4: Explain the timeskips more, there are clearly skips in time, but they aren't really identified well aside from the generation skip.

FE5: Can't think of anything to change

FE6: More Jahn stuff in the background, everything else as simple as it is works

FE7: Seeing as Lyn Mode was pretty great in terms of writing, having her mean more to Eliwood & Hectors plot would be great.

FE8: Have Eirika develop better out of her naivety

FE9: I'd change nothing

FE10: The Bloodpacts and Naesala being more sympathetic are both annoying to me

FE11: As this game has some of the best lines in FE, more talking would be nice.

FE12: Remove Kris or at least remove the annoying line steals he/she has, the assassins subplot is ok, but i'm not the biggest fan of that either aside from the final chapter with Katrina

FE13: Have Gangrel as the main villain, as Gangrel obviously has a beef with Chrom, not to mention the implied past between both nations or get rid of Robin, maybe both so he doesn't steal the limelight from Chrom & Lucina like Kris does from Marth.

FE14: Remove the "Invisible Kingdom" and/or Corrin stuff entirely

Edited October 30, 2016 by Jedi

[Etrurian emperor]

Binding Blade: Put Pent in there now!

You could argue its very in character for Pent to happily dig in ruins when there's a war going on but his absence is a lot harder to justify when dragons come up. I know Pent was busy not yet existing at the time but more Pent is never a bad thing. He would probably be an archsage at the time too.

Blazing sword: Um....

I have a bit of an hard time thinking of something. Perhaps involving Lyn more in the later parts of the story.

Path of Radience: Do more with Ashnard

I second everyone that said this. The relation between Ashnard and every other member of the cast is very impersonal. Ike doesn't care about him and he doesn't care about Elincia. Interesting as he is Ashnard is just the big name that needs to be taken down.

Radiant dawn: Don't screw up the black knight so badly.

The black knight is quite a curious case in RD. The game ask us to think of him as a sympathetic character but at the same time they reveal that the only reason he killed Greil is to see if he could do so. That's murder and its weird how the game treats this as a point in his favor. BK wanted to prove himself and Greil just had to die for that, despite Lehran saying that was never required to begin with.

The reveal was also quite clumsy.

Both Tellius games: Don't keep making the beorc solely responsible for the hostility between the races.

Its a bit hard to take the message that racism is bad seriously when one of the two races is obviously superior. Every source of conflict can be traced back to the beorc, the beorc who don't have a problem with Laguz are often deemed the exception and every Laguz who's wary of beorc comes off as fully justified. Even the Laguz who negatively affect the relation between the races only do this after the beorc do something horrible to their race first.

Awakening: Cut Walhart

Walhart is pretty great but there's just to much going on while the time Awakening gives each arc is very limited. Awakening has too many villains and of all of them Walhart can be removed the easiest. With the Valm arc the game could have been able to better flesh out Ylisse, Plegia and Grima.

Fates: Make Garon act like Garon

A lot of problems with the story could be fixed if Garon wasn't so irredeemable. With all we know about Garon we can safely say he's not supposed to be irredeemable. You could argue that its a sign something isn't right with Garon but its far easier to argue that Gooron fails completely at impersonating Garon.

Genealogy: Make Julius be the one in favor of brainwashing Julia.

It was always a bit out of character for Manfroy to ensure the only thing that could stop them remained alive. Manfroy has successfully manipulated everyone in the story but then slips up so badly. It would be more in character if the teenaged and immature Julius would send his brainwashed sister off to kill her friends for a quick laugh.

[Rezzy]

Aside from stuff already mentioned

FE10, make things more gray on all sides.

Have the Laguz army really score some early surprise attack victories on Begnion. As a result, morale is very low, Zelgius and Sephiram convince Sanaki to led the army for morale's sake. She's hesitant, but sees how the Laguz army has killed many of her people, and thinks if she helps score a victory, she can bring everybody to the table and hammer out a peace treaty. Things go wrong and the Begnion army loses again. This time, however, the Laguz kill Sanaki, the one person who still wanted peace with the Laguz. This makes both sides a bit more gray, as opposed to "The Begnion Senate is the source of all evil" thing we have going in FE10. And it also brings back the plot point that the Laguz Kings said about once their soldiers went into battle, it is very hard, if not impossible to get them to stop. Playing through the first time, I really thought more negative would come from that bloodlust, but in the end, its effect was negligible.

As I was typing this, I noticed you post

Both Tellius games: Don't keep making the beorc solely responsible for the hostility between the races.

Its a bit hard to take the message that racism is bad seriously when one of the two races is obviously superior. Every source of conflict can be traced back to the beorc, the beorc who don't have a problem with Laguz are often deemed the exception and every Laguz who's wary of beorc comes off as fully justified. Even the Laguz who negatively affect the relation between the races only do this after the beorc do something horrible to their race first.

I agree. I feel blood lust is never a good trait and think this should have been explored more. If the Laguz can be that savage, maybe that's why the Beorc are so racist against them in the first place. Edited October 30, 2016 by Rezzy

[Alastor15243]

Oh I could go on for pages about what I would do if I were writing Fates from scratch (and I will once I finish Revelation), but if it had to just be one change?

Slime Garon. Get rid of him and make Garon an actual person waging a war for actual reasons. Anankos can still be doing stuff behind the scenes to fan the flames of war and frame each side for some crimes against the other, that wouldn't bother me, it'd actually be pretty fun if both sides were both sympathetic and at least a little bit wrong. Anankos secretly fanning the flames behind the scenes through Garon rings hollow when one side is still objectively in the right and thus instead of taking a third option between two flawed choices and showing both sides why they're wrong to fight each other, you're instead taking a third option between the objectively correct one and the one that comes at the smallest personal cost.

...Oh, and I almost forgot: For Awakening?

Focus on the cool story you implied.

Seriously, the bad future seems like it would've made a far more interesting story and game than the one we actually got.

Edited October 30, 2016 by Alastor15243

[Magical Glace]

Binding Blade: Put Pent in there now!

You could argue its very in character for Pent to happily dig in ruins when there's a war going on but his absence is a lot harder to justify when dragons come up. I know Pent was busy not yet existing at the time but more Pent is never a bad thing. He would probably be an archsage at the time too.

Pent's mentioned in one of Klein's supports. Edited October 30, 2016 by Glaceon Mage

[Rezzy]

Oh I could go on for pages about what I would do if I were writing Fates from scratch (and I will once I finish Revelation), but if it had to just be one change?

Slime Garon. Get rid of him and make Garon an actual person waging a war for actual reasons. Anankos can still be doing stuff behind the scenes to fan the flames of war and frame each side for some crimes against the other, that wouldn't bother me, it'd actually be pretty fun if both sides were both sympathetic and at least a little bit wrong. Anankos secretly fanning the flames behind the scenes through Garon rings hollow when one side is still objectively in the right and thus instead of taking a third option between two flawed choices and showing both sides why they're wrong to fight each other, you're instead taking a third option between the objectively correct one and the one that comes at the smallest personal cost.

...Oh, and I almost forgot: For Awakening?

Focus on the cool story you implied.

Seriously, the bad future seems like it would've made a far more interesting story and game than the one we actually got.

I'd argue that Hoshido isn't as in the right as the are portrayed as being in Birthright. After about chapter 8, there's no real threat of Nohr invading Hoshido. Hoshido's army just marches over Nohr at every meeting. They don't really seem like much of a threat. Instead of the underdog overcoming overwhelming odds to reclaim their country, it's just some powerful country curb stomping a weaker one. Not to mention Hoshido violating Nestra's neutrality by attacking Garon during a show that never gets brought up.

Pent's mentioned in one of Klein's supports.

I like how Louise is just referred to as Pent's wife. You'd think Dieck would have the courtesy to refer to her by name, if he's as close to them as he claims.

I shall henceforth be called only "the wife".

Edited October 30, 2016 by Rezzy

[eclipse]

I shall henceforth be called only "the wife".

Understood!

Now, for the topic. . .

- FE7: Ninian the Passive needs to go. Things HAPPEN to her, whether it be twisting her ankle, getting kidnapped/brainwashed, dying, or being resurrected. Her active role is very limited, which is why her ending up with Eliwood felt so icky. She's supposed to be a powerful ice dragon of sorts, let her DO things!

- FE8: Lyon the Helpless needs to go. While the sympathetic angle is how to get to Eir's heart, it makes Lyon look completely and utterly spineless. His Ephraim incarnation is a lot better - it shows that he chose his path, as opposed to being forced down it.

- FE9: The Greil Mercenaries should've been transferred to Titania, not Ike. The latter started not too long ago, and shows that he's in no shape to be leader after his father died. Titania's been around for a while, which is why I felt she'd be a better choice as leader. Once Ike had more experience, she could hand over leadership of the group to him.

- FE10: Holy shit, where do I begin. . .right, ONE thing. Micaiah's got too many "special" things going for her, whether it be her hair color, her various powers, or her origins. I don't mind the hair color (it's a decent moniker), and her origins sort-of explain part of her powers. She would've been best off without the overly convenient future sight, on top of being a tactician (IMO make that some sort of group discussion, since everyone that isn't Edward can probably contribute something useful).

- FE11: Falchion the Weaker shouldn't exist. Like, just have Marth find Nagi - she's plenty powerful.

- FE12: Goodbye Kris. Whatever agency Marth had was taken over by this sorry excuse of a self-insert. I'm in favor of fleshing out the characters, but I would've liked that to happen as various base conversations (like what Gordin and Ryan have). For example, Roger could hit on Feena, the Archanea Prison Squad could talk amongst themselves, and WHERE IS MY CAIN AND ABEL CONVERSATION?!

- FE13: Future sight is bad, okay? Robin's free to be the tactician, but none of this "I foresaw this" bullshit. Have Lucina fill in the gaps.

- FE14: Less black and white. Nohr's color may be black, but that doesn't mean that it needs to be wholly evil. Meanwhile, Hoshido isn't some sort of paragon of perfection. And don't get me started on Valla.

[MCProductions]

FE3: Remove the Darksphere plot device, and then the game's biggest issue, extreme sexism, would at least be somewhat mitigated.

FE4: Either have the first gen be shortened to one prologue map, or make Sigurd much less of a dumbass.

FE5: Make the early plot not drag so much. It took me until CHAPTER 6 to really get interested in FE5's story

FE6: Make Eliwood have more of role, and literally make Fae Tiki

FE7: Make Lyn more relevant and make Eliwood x Lyn canon

FE8: Remove Ephraim as Eirika is a much more interesting protagonist and Ephraim only detracts from her imo.

FE9: Make Ike a noble of SOMEWHERE at least, as a commoner his story doesn't fly for me in a medevil fantasy environment

FE10: FUCK the Blood Pact, and also make Micaiah an actually interesting character

FE12: Remove Kris, keep the Assassin sub plot imo since it can work in FE3's story, but Kris is literally the only FE avatar to offend me.

FE13: FUCK TIME TRAVEL

FE14: Make Hoshido actually likable as a nation, because when your selling point is choosing a family, and I literally feel no incentive to choose Hoshido at all my first run, you done shat your pants

[Azure Sen]

FE7: More Lyn involvement in both Hector and Eliwood's stories.

FE8: Eirika and Ephraim's development should have been more pronounced, at least in their own routes.

FE9: Titania and Soren, at least, should get proper character arcs of their own. Also, as others have mentioned, Ashnard should have a larger presence in the story.

FE10: Demote Ike from protagonist status in Chapters 3 and 4 and instead give way more screentime to the Dawn Brigade and Elincia.

FE12: Reduce Kris' role in the story or jettison the Avatar entirely. Aside from the conversations, which don't need to be Avatar-exclusive, Kris contributes nothing to the story.

FE13: Have Walhart be more involved with the story from the start so the Valm arc doesn't feel so out of place. Make it more explicit that he has at least one of the Fire Emblem's gems so there's a real reason for the Valm arc to happen at all.

These are all the ones where there is just one more or less major thing I'd change about the writing. Most of my complaints about FE4 and FE6's writing are pretty minor, at least from my perspective.

[Etrurian emperor]

FE9: Make Ike a noble of SOMEWHERE at least, as a commoner his story doesn't fly for me in a medevil fantasy environment

Doesn't Sanaki does exactly that for that very reason? She even says that a commoner leading Begnion troops just wouldn't do before she does it.

[The Draco Knight]

Both Tellius games: Don't keep making the beorc solely responsible for the hostility between the races.

Its a bit hard to take the message that racism is bad seriously when one of the two races is obviously superior. Every source of conflict can be traced back to the beorc, the beorc who don't have a problem with Laguz are often deemed the exception and every Laguz who's wary of beorc comes off as fully justified. Even the Laguz who negatively affect the relation between the races only do this after the beorc do something horrible to their race first.

^^^^^^^^This so much.

It's probably the main reason why I love Naesala in FE9

Anyway:

FE8: Flesh Fomortiis more:

He is the mastermind behind all of what happens in the story and yet we don't know why he wants to do the things he does and even where he comes from.

FE9: Make Elincia the main character and ashnard beatable by anyone.

FE10: I don't find the Blood Pact to be that much of a problem, but I really don't like how It is used to make Naesala a symphatetic character.

It just removes what made him so interesting in FE9

FE13: Remove the Walharc and focus more on the first one and second one.

To this, also add a "secon generation", where we play as the children in their future trying to save the world without time travelling.

FE14: There are a lot of thing that should be changed here, but I would like if Mikoto had more time in the story before being killed.

It would make her death more touching.

[Sire]

I don't remember much about PoR's story and was not that invested in Shadow Dragon despite beating it, so I won't post them here. Everything is in spoilers to save some space, it seems everything I type ends up being a wall of text...

[spoiler=Blazing Sword - Give Nergal more screentime?]I honestly don't remember much about Blazing Sword to remember a major reason to change anything, but that may be because I played it years ago. Lyn's Tale is a nice small story about a heiress reclaiming her birthright while the main story deals with the Black Fang and their machinations. I suppose Nergal could be a little more active in the plot than doing everything behind the scenes, but when I played it did not bother me that much.

As for some minor points...

- Give more of a reason why Lyn can wield the Mani Katti besides "the chosen one". Perhaps it was a sacred blade used by the royal bloodline of Caelin in times of need?

- Have Lyn be a little more relevant outside her side story. I know she was not in Binding Blade, but she could've had more closure.

[spoiler=Sacred Stones - More Unique Branching Paths?]I found Sacred Stones to be pretty good for what it was and I still believe Sacred Stones has the most fleshed out characters and support conversations in the franchise, if only because of the non-marriage endings. This game shows that having a smaller number of higher quality characters than many with gimmicks can go a long way.

If there is one major thing I could change about Sacred Stones, I would probably try to make the branching paths a bit more different. Yes, there are some different chapters before the twins are reunited and the rest of the story is told from either Erika's or Ephraim's perspective, but gameplay wise the player will always get the characters and the other twin will either have an escort or army. Perhaps it might have been a nice change of pace if the characters went with Erika while Ephraim actually leads an army of generics (with some characters mixed in) on Grado. Even Ephraim having a small elite roster with NPC allies like in some chapters of Radiant Dawn Part 2 could have worked to mimic the scale of war.

But even then, I still find Sacred Stones to be good. If I could nitpick, maybe have the monsters play a larger role in the story aside from haunting certain locales or being important at the very end. Maybe they are mobilizing an army or attacking a city, a side chapter or two could help make them more of a threat, because besides the Demon King at the end of it all, Grado seems to be the looming threat throughout the entire game.

[spoiler=Radiant Dawn - Remove Blood Pact]Gotta go with the masses on this one, the Blood Pact, while it does its job at having characters fight each other, could have been executed better or done in an alternative way.

To keep in line with the Senate being the bad guys, perhaps some soldiers loyal to the Senate (with some outliers) instigate a war between Crimea and Daein by dressing up as respective soldiers and causing havoc in that country (Crimeans messing around in Daein, Daein soldiers screwing up Crimea). When the actual factions start fighting, give both sides justified reasons why they are fighting each other instead of the current reason of Daein being "we are held under the Blood Pact!". Then, when everything goes down in Part 4, the two sides figure out what is going on, ally, and the story continues as normal.

However, as an off comment, I never noticed the Blood Pact being a problem when I originally played. I wonder if the negativity towards it shaped my thinking, or if reflecting back on RD's story the Blood Pact was indeed a weak plot point.

[spoiler=Awakening - Flesh Out Valm Arc]Like Thane has said, Awakening has three main parts. The first is Gangrel getting revenge on Ylisse due to crimes committed by the previous Exalt. I consider this a nice arc as it paints Ylisse in a darker light than being the classic "goody good guys" all the time, even if Chrom and company are the stereotypical heroes. The second is the Valm arc which focuses on Walhart and his conquests. I believe he also actually had a motive on why he was set on conquering everything, which I will get to later. Finally, there's the conclusion with Grima, the Grimleal, and the Avatar. Nothing really outstanding here besides evil cult wanting to resurrect dark dragon god while also finding out who the Avatar is.

Awakening does have its poor points, but the largest problem for me was the Valm arc. It was literally filler and contributed basically nothing to the main plot aside from perhaps a revelation or two near the end.

What I want is Walhart's motivation for conquest to be expanded upon and become the focus of the Valm Arc. If I remember correctly, he is set on unifying the world against Grima (he read the propecies or something, I don't remember) but does it through raw strength instead of diplomacy. So, Chrom and Walhart fight each other over ideologies (instead of liberating the country - this still happens but is not a focus) as Grima gains in power. Eventually, Walhart is defeated and Chrom and company continue to confront Grima and its respective story.

As a minor point, while I love having the characters around to play with, the special paralogue characters need an overhaul. Either expand on why they join the party (including adding proper supports and stuff), make then purely bonus characters who look and play like the real versions but are not, or alternatively get rid of them in the first place. Sure, it's cool to mess around with Gangrel, Walhart, and even a fallen Exalt, but from a story standpoint, why are they there?! It there are bonus characters, treat them as such, otherwise go the extra mile and properly implement them into the game instead of having a couple handwaved lines to justify their existence.

[spoiler=Fates - Remove Revelations or Overhaul Story]I know, everyone wants the Golden Ending. I like my Golden Endings too, but if it feels like the true ending cheapens the other endings, then why even have the other endings to begin with?

The whole thing with Valla was a mess. I wanted Fates story to be two opposing factions fighting for what they believe is right and for justifiable reasons. Yes, Birthright can be the classic Fire Emblem story about being invaded and turning the tide. Corrin may not want to fight his siblings, but he can't see the injustices of Nohr go unpunished.

I wanted Conquest to be transforming Nohr from the inside instead of being powerless to do anything. I want Corrin to disobey orders he disagrees with and suffer the consequences. I want to see Corrin then try to covertly accomplish what he believes is right while "following" his new orders. We know somewhat of how the Nohr Royals cope with questionable orders - Leo works in secret for what he believes in while Elise has her secret place she can go to, but what of Camilla and Xander? Does Camilla do it trying to get affection from her now distant father? Is Xander disillusioned with the world, his sense of justice diminished based off what all he has seen? Then, I want Garon to be an actual character. What happened to the happy ladykiller Garon of youth? How did the Concubine Wars affect him? Is there an Imposter Garon, and if so, where is the real one? I love Conquest and it had so much potential that seeing it and discussing about it makes a man depressed.

My issue with Revelations is that it screws over the Birthright and Conquest campaigns so it too can have a place, and even then, its story is not that good (Rush to unite both factions, go to Valla, and enjoy gimmicky filler chapters). So, I rather have it removed or the entire story overhauled so that everything makes logical sense and is better written than the current plot. Garon is nothing more but a mindless monster, there's the curse which is pointless, a consumable item that reveals the truth only once, Azura being Azura, the Throne of Truth, and tons of other points that have been discussed to death.

In short, remove Revelations, practically all of its aspects, and focus on the story between Hoshido and Nohr, alongside the dynamic between Corrin and his siblings on both sides.This will require rewriting Garon and figuring out where Mikoto goes, but I think the stories will be better off without the Vallite influence.

Another idea I had about an overhaul is removing Revelations from the main plot (so Conquest and Birthright is one timeline, Revelations is a different one) and making it a standalone story. To try and be concise, Nohr and Hoshido go to war with Corrin stuck in the middle. Corrin is independent and will fight both factions and gradually recruit (capture and persuade) characters to his side. Eventually, Anakos and the Vallites will show up as a forth faction, but Nohr and Hoshido are still fighting each other in spite of it. The objective during this "Free Play Campaign" is to defeat Anakos, and upon doring so, Corrin unites the world and everything is sunshine and rainbows. The End. Further details on this is in the spoiler below.

[spoiler=Fates - Alternative Revelations Idea - Freeform Campaign]Gameplay

- Revelations becomes more of a game mode than a story campaign. The appeal is the open ended nature of it and the fact the player can recruit everyone from both Conquest and Birthright.

- The player starts off in My Castle which will serve as the base of operations. At the start, only the retainers (Felecia, Jakob, and Gunter) as well as Kaze, Silas, and Azura (Chosen One, Best Friend, Reasons) are available. Flora is unavailable as she has business in her hometown, but she can be recruited like any other unit.

- To obtain new characters, the player must fight them in a skirmish battle. Skirmishes are available from the World Map with special indicators if a character is attending that particular skirmish. Defeat the character to capture them, and then try to persuade them to your side. It may take multiple attempts to capture and persuade a character, generally the more important that character is, the harder to obtain said character.

- As the player progresses, enemy forces and characters are leveled as well. Of course, there are still a few that a lower level than the player.

- It is possible to be involved in multi-way battles. Corrin can join a battle that is going on between Hoshido and Nohr. If Anakos is active, it is possible all four factions are present during a single battle.

- Aside from trying to recruit characters, the player can attempt to defeat Hoshido or Nohr at any time by attacking the capital. The difficulty of doing so is comparable of that of a final chapter, and the player will fight Garon or Mikoto respectively. Needless to say, doing this is impossible early game. Upon successfully defeating them, Corrin will automatically recruit all the characters of that side.

- During some point of the game, Anakos and his Vallite soldiers will invade and begin fighting everyone. Gaining access to Anakos lair (which requires the Yato to be fully awakened, which requires recruiting Xander, Leo, Ryoma, and Takumi) and defeating Anakos is the ultimate goal of the freeform campaign.

- On occasion, Nohr, Hoshido, or Vallite soldiers will attack Corrin's Castle (My Castle). Losing the battle has consequences, but the game will continue.

Story

- The beginning has Corrin receiving the news that Hoshido and Nohr have gone to war. Not wanting the war to occur, Corrin sets off in an attempt to end the fighting on both sides. Despite being allowed to discuss matters with the leaders and siblings of both sides, they refuse to relent and continue the war. So, with some aid from Lilith (My Castle) Corrin ends up joining the war as a third faction to unite Hoshido and Nohr.

- Azura can still have her powers and tells Corrin about the eventual Anakos and the Vallite invasion, but is straight about it instead of dancing around the important questions.

- The story in Revelations is less about the overall plot and more about the interactions between characters. During battles, they may have something to say upon combat based off of Corrin's actions and overall progress. Base conversations return to highlight this fact.

- Later, Anakos shows up. While Corrin somehow manages to arrange a meeting between Garon and Mikoto to discuss the matter of Anakos and the Vallites. Azura tells everyone that the only way to get to Anakos is working together and unlocking the true power of the Yato. However, before diplomacy could continue, the Vallites crash the meeting and it fails to unite anyone. Hoshido and Nohr continue to fight each other in spite of the threat, so Corrin has renewed determination to unite everyone armed with this new information. (Of course, should Corrin have already defeated one or both of the leaders, the sequence will change to reflect this fact.)

- Upon defeating Anakos, Corrin has brought peace to the land and had demonstrated the power of friendship between the Hoshido and Nohr Royals (at least the brothers). The hostilities cease, Corrin has all of the siblings, the player has access to practically everyone, and post game revolves around beating up Vallite remnants, rebels of respective factions, and DLC.

[Thane]

A lot of interesting responses, everyone. It seems as if certain things, like the Blood Pact, are pretty much widely considered to be the biggest flaw, although that's not really news I suppose, haha.

Both Tellius games: Don't keep making the beorc solely responsible for the hostility between the races.

Its a bit hard to take the message that racism is bad seriously when one of the two races is obviously superior. Every source of conflict can be traced back to the beorc, the beorc who don't have a problem with Laguz are often deemed the exception and every Laguz who's wary of beorc comes off as fully justified. Even the Laguz who negatively affect the relation between the races only do this after the beorc do something horrible to their race first.

Indeed. It's especially jarring in Path of Radiance, where the Laguz seem to believe that might is right, just like Ashnard, yet he's evil. I mean, I know there are more differences than that, but to my knowledge that isn't really brought up.

FE14: Remove the "Invisible Kingdom" and/or Corrin stuff entirely

You know, I think the strangest - not necessarily the worst, although I most certainly dislike it with a passion - decision in any Fire Emblem game was making Corrin the monarch of Valla. It comes out of nowhere, and all of a sudden Corrin wants to rule a dead nation made up by land given to them by Xander and Ryouma without ever mentioning why? It's just...where does this come from? It's nothing major, and it'd disappear if we were to remove Valla or the "Corrin stuff", but it's really baffling.

[saisymbolic]

Branching off this, instead of all the paralogues being the 2nd generation, I'd rather that each paralogue be flashback chapters to give context to every possible plot point. For example, Gangrel mentioning Chrom's Father's crusade agaisnt Plegia (I forget what Chapter it was first introduced), Lon'qu losing to Masked Marth, Cordelia's survivor's guilt from her entire squadron dying or even the slaughtering of the Taguel, as CH6x.

For the 2nd gen, I feel they should only be available come later in the game, in the Grima arc (or rather, in that sequel of the story, to continue with the idea of each arc being its own separate thing)

With the use of flashback chapters I feel it could give characters a chance to flesh out a little, though there are some that are harder to imagine what point they could go off on, such as Maribelle, Ricken, Sully&Stahl, but its not to say that each and EVERY unit has to have a CH to them self.

Its a thought, anyway.

I like this idea for Fates as well.

Flashback paralogues used as a device to expand upon the events and characters of Fates from the past.

For example, a skirmish where a younger (or at least not Slime!Garon) displays both his military prowess and benevolence as a ruler; a chapter that involves Sumeragi rescuing Mikoto from bandits following her flight from Valla, giving the beginning moment of how they first met; a map where Xander and Ryoma rides into battle for the first time alongside their fathers; a glance into Camilla's younger years where she was allegedly used as a pawn to supposedly kill off her siblings; the moment when Corrin was kidnapped by Nohr in the point of view of Kaze.

Other than that, I would be echoing everyone else for the other games.

Edited October 30, 2016 by saisymbolic

[Captain Karnage]

Awakening

How did Chrom teach Lucina how to fight when he died in the other timeline when she was between 1-2

recall in the begining of Awakening we saw Robin kill Chrom in another timeline

it lines up in the game itself when they go to fight Validar

if your going to do time travel, do it the way they do if Futurama, don't go back to change something rather go back in time because you are needed to cause an event to happen

FE 11

Support conversations and better visuals

FE 12

better visuals, supports, and a better Kris

(on a side note I like the player character's role in the main story, not in it to just helping out the main character)

Radiant Dawn

nuke it

PoR

give Ashnard a larger role. Though the Black Knight is the real antagonist in the story

FE 4

smaller maps

[Dark Holy Elf]

FE6: Develop the PC cast in the main story far, far more. I failed to care about them at all.


FE7: Make Ninian less passive. As mentioned, stuff just happens to her, again and again and again. She's one of the most important PCs yet I can't really remember her doing much of her own volition.

Everything about Nergal is terrible so I can't think of one quick fix. Yeah, you can improve his MO, but you still have his lack of interersting reasons for being evil, and his completely inconsistent plot power, etc.


FE8: Make Ephraim's route less of a boring afterthought. Seriously, the entire route is "Ephraim moves towards Grado's capitol, wins a battle because he's that great". To be clear this is a problem in some other FE games, but most of those FEs are worse-written than Sacred Stones, which has few major flaws.


FE9: I've ranted about this before, but I'll do it again: the part of the game where Ashnard just sits on the throne of Crimea as Daein is overrun is complete and utter nonsense which totally ruins any suspension of disbelief I could have for the war.

Ashnard's army is made up of humans, not a bunch of soulless morphs or monsters. These humans have families and homes in Daein. Yet not once do we see a single soldier give a damn about the fact that their homeland has been conquered, and neither Ashnard nor his generals make any move to reclaim their country. FE has a serious issue with dehumanising the soldiers of the enemy country in a few games, but this was certainly the worst, and it ruins every character involved. It's extra frustrating because right up until that event FE9 was actually doing a better job with this issue than most (consider the scenes in Talrega, where Jill has to deal with the grey morality of invading Daein).


FE10: I'm... pretty okay with the Blood Pact, though certainly open to ways it could be tinkered with. I just take it as the fantasy equivalent of Lekain saying "we've set up a nuclear bomb somewhere in Nevassa, if you stop doing as we say or our spies see you trying to evacuate we will detonate it", and that's fine. I'm also pretty okay with Zelgius! Far moreso than I was in PoR. So... hmm. I guess the biggest thing I'd do is spread out the screentime in part 3 more, it focuses far too much on the Greil Mercenaries, who do no real developing this time around (although Skrimir is cool). More Crimea please.


FE11-12: I'm pretty sure these are beyond saving to me. See what I said about FE6, but apply it to the villains and setting as well.


FE13: Remove the Valm arc entirely and focus on the sympathetic-if-violent aspects of Plegia (i.e. how Chrom's father was a jerk to them) instead of turning them into a group of cultists. There's not really much game left at this point, but I'd rather see those good parts salvaged into something.


FE14: Make Garon a compelling, primarily political character, capable of being a worthy menacing adversary in Birthright and someone you have to craftilly manipulate in Conquest. Birthright should have been a primarily defensive war, not a boring offensive one (see also: Ephraim route complaints). And yeah, Valla sucks.

[The Geek]

I think I'll probably just be echoing a lot of things that people have said before, but here goes.

FE1/11: More plot involvement from people not named Marth or Nyna. It'd help with making it so that your entire army isn't just a bunch of empty character designs.

FE3/12: Remove Kris from FE12. Pretty much all they do is take lines away from Marth, Jeigan, and Cain.

FE4: Flesh out the Lopt Sect more. People complain about the Grimleal, but remember that the Lopt Sect is the original bland, evil-for-no-reason dragon cult.

FE6: Remove the Western Isles arc. It's basically completely unrelated to the rest of the story.

FE7: Have Lyn actually matter to the plot.

FE8: Make Lyon's characterization more consistent between the two routes.

FE9: Don't remember too much of this one, but I'd probably agree with the idea of making the racial issues between the Beorc and Laguz less "the Beorc are the evil ones" and have it be more even-handed.

FE10: Remember this story even less, so I can't say anything here.

Awakening: Either remove the Valm arc or swap its place in the story with the Gangrel arc. Fighting the inconsequential empire sounds like good fodder for early game character intros.

Fates: Remove the "it's not the real Garon" subplot and give him actual motivations. The game gives him plenty of fodder for reasons to want to invade Hoshido, just let it be that rather than "because I'm a puppet of a shit-disturber dragon god".

[Thinks Their Own Way]

I'm going to do the games I'm most familiar with. (I started a little bit of Scared Stones).

Awakening: Fuck Chrom and make it more about Robin and Lucina from the beginning.

Fates: Both things involve Birthright.

*Take out the whole thing with Kaze dying without having an A support with Corrin, it's easy to do but it was just not needed.

* I wish Corrin felt more bad invading Nohr, to help eliminate some the obvious Hoshido bias.