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Do you like Alm's character? (spoilers, I guess)


Alm's character/personality  

102 members have voted

  1. 1. Do you like Alm's character?

    • yes
      66
    • no
      14
    • indifferent
      22


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Thread title. I saw an interesting conversation over at the "Ike's Dissonance" thread regarding Alm and his personality/character. In an attempt to not derail that thread any further, I've started this one.

As for my thoughts: I think his VA's great, I like the little quips and jokes he makes whenever you examine something, and I think his personality is pretty chill. Overall, I believe him to be an entertainingly written character.

However... I believe he's in the completely wrong game.

In the original Gaiden, the thing that made Alm and Celica interesting was that they represented two ideals; Celica represented peace and kindness (Mila), whereas Alm represented power and aggression (Duma). I can't quite put my finger on it, but Alm in this game feels... off, somehow. It didn't feel like he was representing that sort of extreme ideal that Duma embodied. As such, this theme of balancing out two extreme ideologies fell flat, IMO.

I don't know. I'm tired. What are your thoughts? Do you like/dislike him? Why?

Edited by Pixelman
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39 minutes ago, Pixelman said:

Alm in this game feels... off, somehow.

That's because Alm is portrayed as perfect, has no need to change as a person and most certainly does not need more compassion.

The latter in particular is a big deal because, like you said, Alm and Celica are supposed to represent two different ideals later on uniting in order to avoid making the same mistakes as Duma and Mila, and by extension Rigel and Zofia. However, while you could argue that Alm influences Celica towards the end, she never influences him; Alm is already inhumanly forgiving and compassionate, going so far as to not harboring any hard feelings against Berkut or Fernand in spite of all the shit they've said and done towards him and his friends.

Had Alm been an avatar, people would have loathed him, even if all you could do was change his name. Women are obsessed with him, the guys openly say they're inferior to him, he's got special blood that allows him to use not one but two unique swords and bypass a literal wall separating the kings from the peasants, and manages to unite two countries that have been divinely separated for thousands of years without addressing the cultural, linguistic, religious and societal differences in the span of one year. Hell, one could make the argument that Alm is an avatar in all but name; the characters even stare directly at the player during town sections without having Alm verbally respond, like in many RPG's or games like Zelda.

Yes, Alm grows as a leader, but he never needs to change who he is or adopt a new way of thinking, which goes against the very main theme of the game. Alm is also never allowed to fail, and when he does something borderline questionable that's supposed to weigh him down, like killing Rudolf, responsibility is immediately lifted from his shoulders.

For these reason, I don't like him. He's too perfect, static, worshipped and doesn't even fit in the story his own game is trying to tell. No, he's not worse than Corrin, but he's got many of the same problems, and it would be hypocritical to pretend otherwise.

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I think Alm could have used to be a little more agressive, to compensate for Celica's passiveness. It should have been more like Eirika/Ephraim, who were actually based off of the original Alm and Celica anyway. He was also a little too perfect. Maybe if he'd harbored a bigger grudge against Rigel and Berkut in particular. "What? You sacrificed your fiance for Duma's power? You're sick, dude! I'm gonna kill you!"

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I would have preferred they kept the persona they seemed to be building in Awakening, that Alm was the aggressive, pragmatic, possibly brutal compliment to Celica's peaceful, passive character. Hell, the class he brings to Awakening and Fates has a signature ability called "Aggressor".

I really don't mind him being a bit more thoughtful, forgiving and mellowed out, since that was also part of Alm's original portrayal, but it loses the bit that made him unique, and he loses a good dichotomy he could have had with Celica. Now he's just kind of a standard FE lord, instead of something unique. He's good for a standard FE lord, but yeah.

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Was Alm actually THAT aggressive in Gaiden? I re-read the script and outside of "crush those bastards" which is completely understandable given the situation there wasn't anything special that would paint him into a full savage. In fact Rudolf says "I hear that Sofia's young general is a man of compassion" before their grand battle. Also the wiki says he talked in feminine way in OG Gaiden, is it true?  
Another thing is that I don't think the plot is supposed to have intentional your birth doesn't matter aesop. The game beats you over the head with implications that Alm is special starting with prologue and drops hints like crazy. It's just another story about the choosen one.   

Also, FE seems to have serious problems with allowing male protagonists to be wrong. Celica, Eirika and Micaiah all screw up but Alm, Ephraim and Ike can't.

 

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23 minutes ago, Cat Villager said:

Was Alm actually THAT aggressive in Gaiden? I re-read the script and outside of "crush those bastards" which is completely understandable given the situation there wasn't anything special that would paint him into a full savage. In fact Rudolf says "I hear that Sofia's young general is a man of compassion" before their grand battle. Also the wiki says he talked in feminine way in OG Gaiden, is it true?  
Another thing is that I don't think the plot is supposed to have intentional your birth doesn't matter aesop. The game beats you over the head with implications that Alm is special starting with prologue and drops hints like crazy. It's just another story about the choosen one.   

Also, FE seems to have serious problems with allowing male protagonists to be wrong. Celica, Eirika and Micaiah all screw up but Alm, Ephraim and Ike can't.

 

The "Crush those bastards" line was like, one of two lines Alm got in the original game that gave him any character, and it's the line the Awakening writers seemed to go with, since Alm's lines in the Awakening DLC had him being perplexed as to how you could resolve conflicts without violence.

The other line being the line is a lot more in-line with how Alm ends up in SoV.

I agree with your second point, about how the female lords tend to be the ones who fuck up, while the men have to come in and fix things. Hell, even Lyn basically amounts to moral support for Eliwood and Hector, while Eliwood and Hector completely drive the plot.

Edited by Slumber
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Just now, Slumber said:

The "Crush those bastards" line was like, one of two lines Alm got in the original game that gave him any character, and it's the line the Awakening writers seemed to go with, since Alm's lines in the Awakening DLC had him being perplexed as to how you could resolve conflicts without violence.

I honestly have problems visualizing Echoes with Alm's Awakening DLC personality. For starters, there is no way Awakening Alm would go as far as saving every damsel in distress and he would definitely agree with Clive about Delthea's situation unless the army needs more mages and they strike a deal with Luthier or something.

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2 minutes ago, Cat Villager said:

I honestly have problems visualizing Echoes with Alm's Awakening DLC personality. For starters, there is no way Awakening Alm would go as far as saving every damsel in distress and he would definitely agree with Clive about Delthea's situation unless the army needs more mages and they strike a deal with Luthier or something.

Alm's deal was that he hated his enemies, but he hated them because he cared for innocents and Zofians. It wouldn't be out of character for Awakening Alm to save Delthea if he got to kill some Duma faithful and Rigelians in the process.

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I don't think SoV Alm is particulary less aggressive than his Gaiden counterpart. Except for the "I am gonna crush these bastards" line, pretty much all his actions and dialogues that were both in FE2 and FE15 are similar such as how he wanted Rigel soldiers to leave Zofia. The main difference is that he asked for a peace treaty at the end of chapter 3 and they refused though we don't know what FE2 Alm thought about this or even did that.

FE2 Alm obviously showed that he wasn't only all about power and aggressive since he cried when he realised that he killed his own father even though he didn't know about him and that Rudolf still did horrible things. 

Alm was more aggressive in FE13's DLC and I am not sure if we should consider it as canon since in the same map Alm appears, Chrom notices that Alvis acted out of character by acting too nicely with the player's units. The same thing can be said for most of the allied villains and all the Lords you fought tried to kill you at first rather than just asking Chrom who he is and what is he doing there. Hubba said something like how the characters they fought with, could be totally or a bit different from the originals personaliy wise so maybe that's what happened with FE13 Alm. Maybe I am wrong about that since I haven't played FE13's DLC a long time ago though.

And even the "I am gonna crush these bastards" line made sense given the context since Celica and her friends were about to get killed.
Marth told Nyna in FE11 that he would face Grust's forces head-on and told her to watch him silencing them before they attack and it doesn't make Marth an aggressive or a particulary violent person.

Anyway as a character, I mainly like because of his dorky comments like Mr Sun and his dumb jokes and also him being serious when he needs to be. As a Lord I find him a bit standard at times but he still has his unique moments like with Celica in the Zofia's castle and with his friends. 

I think however the story tried to make him avoid conflicts and obstacles too much.
For example the whole Royal Sword moment was quite stupid since he could have just asked Lukas to hold it and he would have realised that it is truly a special sword rather than Tobin just sucking at holding swords and being strong.  Lukas or Clive could have made a theory about Alm being one of Lima IV's children and later on at the end of chapter 3, Alm could have accepted that idea thanks to his mark being similar to Celica's.  
It would have make more sense for the Deliverance wanting him to rule Zofia and later on all Valentia and make Alm struggling with the idea of being a royal much earlier rather at the end with Rudolf. It would also have not maked the plot twist so obvious for those who have not played FE2.

An another example is how Mycen is pretty much a ninja and always manages to avoid all Alm's questions until the end of Chapter 4.

Alm also has the same problems with some of the male Lords being one of the main protagonists with a female Lord in the game. 

Ephraim don't pick fights he can't win because he is a perfect tactician who never had any big obstacles in the story compared to Eirika. Meanwhile Eirika gives one of the most important items in Magvel to a guy possessed by the Demon King just because he stopped acting evil for a few seconds even though he still tried to kill them a few minutes ago.
Of course Ephraim never did nothing like that in the story. An another example is Micaiah who is treated as always being in wrong in Part 3 compared to Ike. Even Yune has more dialogues with Ike than Micaiah with him to rub salt in the wound.

Alm is treated a bit too perfect and never does something wrong compared to Celica who nearly gave her soul twice. Celica and her group suffered because of Celica being too nice. Alm and the Zofian army never got a problem except for when Berkut broke the mirror and it ended well. 
I think Leif handled the "being too aggressive can be a problem" theme much better since even after he managed to get back his castle, he tried to save Alster despite August's protestations and it ended quite badly for Dorias and for his army. I guess that something similar to that could have happened to Alm as well.

There are still conflicts in the Alm's route such as him getting tricked by Nuibaba and Clive wondering if he should save Delthea and if he was not wrong for picking Alm as the leader but everything still went well since killing Nuibaba also saved some rigelian people from her and he managed to save an innocent girl without casualties. And of course Clive excused himself and admitted that he was wrong. So yeah I can't say there was truly a moment of weakness for Alm except maybe after the fight with Rudolf.

5 hours ago, Thane said:

Had Alm been an avatar, people would have loathed him, even if all you could do was change his name. Women are obsessed with him, the guys openly say they're inferior to him, he's got special blood that allows him to use not one but two unique swords and bypass a literal wall separating the kings from the peasants, and manages to unite two countries that have been divinely separated for thousands of years without addressing the cultural, linguistic, religious and societal differences in the span of one year. Hell, one could make the argument that Alm is an avatar in all but name; the characters even stare directly at the player during town sections without having Alm verbally respond, like in many RPG's or games like Zelda.

I agree especially about guys saying that they are inferior to him such as Tobin in the last base convo. It was quite disappointing and kinda sad to see him feeling inferior and just admitting that he will never even be as strong as Alm.

Honestly with how Faye is written just like these generic characters having a crush on the self-insert, I wouldn't be surprised if they had that in mind. 

5 hours ago, Thane said:

No, he's not worse than Corrin

To be fair it's not an hard task to be better than Corrin at this point.

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I would have preferred more aggressive Alm, but he is not a bad character Imo.

6 hours ago, Thane said:

That's because Alm is portrayed as perfect, has no need to change as a person and most certainly does not need more compassion.

The latter in particular is a big deal because, like you said, Alm and Celica are supposed to represent two different ideals later on uniting in order to avoid making the same mistakes as Duma and Mila, and by extension Rigel and Zofia. However, while you could argue that Alm influences Celica towards the end, she never influences him; Alm is already inhumanly forgiving and compassionate, going so far as to not harboring any hard feelings against Berkut or Fernand in spite of all the shit they've said and done towards him and his friends.

Had Alm been an avatar, people would have loathed him, even if all you could do was change his name. Women are obsessed with him, the guys openly say they're inferior to him, he's got special blood that allows him to use not one but two unique swords and bypass a literal wall separating the kings from the peasants, and manages to unite two countries that have been divinely separated for thousands of years without addressing the cultural, linguistic, religious and societal differences in the span of one year. Hell, one could make the argument that Alm is an avatar in all but name; the characters even stare directly at the player during town sections without having Alm verbally respond, like in many RPG's or games like Zelda.

Yes, Alm grows as a leader, but he never needs to change who he is or adopt a new way of thinking, which goes against the very main theme of the game. Alm is also never allowed to fail, and when he does something borderline questionable that's supposed to weigh him down, like killing Rudolf, responsibility is immediately lifted from his shoulders.

For these reason, I don't like him. He's too perfect, static, worshipped and doesn't even fit in the story his own game is trying to tell. No, he's not worse than Corrin, but he's got many of the same problems, and it would be hypocritical to pretend otherwise.

I disagree that people would have loathed him as an avatar because he isn't constantly making idiotic decisions and insulting the player's intelligence like Corrin, and doesn't take the spotlight away form an actual main character like Robin. The times in which people felt inferior to Alm made sense in the characterization. When Clive admitted his inferiority to Alm, it follows well in his characterization. Clive as a unit is constantly referred to as being worse than his fiancé Mathilda, and he is shown to not be a strong leader for the deliverance as he was, as Gray put it, losing the war. These traits are also reflected in Clive's bases and growths, and it seems like his admittance to inferiority was more to put a spotlight on Clive than Alm. Tobin also admits his inferiority to Aim, but it also helps to build his character. Throughout the game, Tobin is shown to be insecure and competitive with the other villagers, particularly Gray and Alm. After constantly being shown up by both, it is only natural to let go of the burden and need to compete in order to to stop harboring jealousy for Alm, and maintain friendship. This character trait is also shown in his support with Gray, where after competing for Claire, he eventually says that he would rather continue being friends with Gray than have Claire. The only woman who obsesses over Alm is Faye, who I will admit was not a good edition to the squad. Claire is not madly in love with Alm, and in her ending where Gray dies the game says, "Gray's death left Clair feeling betrayed and alone, but she joined the knights of the One Kingdom and contributed greatly to their growth. The people were enamored with her melancholy beauty, which was a splash of color amidst the mostly dour men of the Brotherhood." This shows that Claire in reality wanted Gray over Alm (particularly if you go by Gaiden endings). Celica is not obsessive over Alm, but cares deeply for him. Given that the first time they meet again in years ends in argumentation, it is safe to assume that Celica is not "obsessed" with Alm.

Other than that, I agree with your post

Edited by KliffIsTheOG
Autocorrect keeps changing Alm to Aim
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34 minutes ago, Thunderstar said:

Alm was more aggressive in FE13's DLC and I am not sure if we should consider it as canon since in the same map Alm appears, Chrom notices that Alvis acted out of character by acting too nicely with the player's units. The same thing can be said for most of the allied villains and all the Lords you fought tried to kill you at first rather than just asking Chrom who he is and what is he doing there. Hubba said something like how the characters they fought with, could be totally or a bit different from the originals personaliy wise so maybe that's what happened with FE13 Alm. Maybe I am wrong about that since I haven't played FE13's DLC a long time ago though.

actually, while they didn't necessarily have to stick to those character personalities, since they weren't developed for an actual game, I believe the writers did intend for the characters' personalities there to be their actual ones

elvis is being nice to chrom and his buddies there, but that's because elvis is not a bad man. it's meant more as a "What will history remember?" thing where chrom says he's painted as a villain.  i believe sigurd tells seliph something similar if you get the conversation with his ghost. so within the world of awakening, alm definitely was.... that. but it was more expanding on a general theme in gaiden than his actual dialogue, so they didn't necessarily have to stick to it in echoes, even if it would've been more interesting. that was the only dlc I had in awakening though, so maybe you were right about the other part

34 minutes ago, Thunderstar said:

I agree especially about guys saying that they are inferior to him such as Tobin in the last base convo. It was quite disappointing and kinda sad to see him feeling inferior and just admitting that he will never even be as strong as Alm.

i don't think he was necessarily admitting that he would never be as strong as alm, but more realizing that he needed to stop trying to compete with him and be better than him, not necessarily because he never will be, but because it doesn't actually matter

one of tobin's central traits is that he's constantly trying to be better than people, and alm in particular is one of them because of how strong he's always been. even before you step outside of the village, you can see this when he says things like "Try not to be too amazed when I show Alm up on the battlefield"

but you can also see that it's something that actually does bother him,  like in his support with kliff where he says "There are lots of things that tick me off. I just choose to let ’em slide. …Except maybe when Alm or Gray show me up. I can’t stand that." hell, one of his quotes when someone kills an enemy near him is "I could do better."

in that last conversation, tobin talks to alm about how much better alm was than him, and how he's always been trying to compete with him. while he does still see alm as "better" than him, he accepts that he doesn't have to be better than alm, and that he should try to support him rather than compete with him

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24 minutes ago, KliffIsTheOG said:

I disagree that people would have loathed him as an avatar because he isn't constantly making idiotic decisions and insulting the player's intelligence like Corrin, and doesn't take the spotlight away form an actual main character like Robin. The times in which people felt inferior to Alm made sense in the characterization.

I disagree. We don't need to constantly hear how awesome Alm is. Gray says, as a kid no less, that Alm and Celica are different than them "in every way", Clive calls Alm a teacher when you save Delthea, and we have the scenes you mentioned. Had Alm been an avatar, this would've been brought up much more frequently.

What Alm also does is make Celica, the other protagonist, feel less important to the overall plot. In the grand scheme of the main story, what does Celica achieve? Sure, she helps Zofians out with the bandit and pirate problems, and she helps Alm on his way, but she fails in her most important mission, admits she messes up and becomes someone Alm must save. There's no unification of ideals, and Alm never needs to change his mentality or react to the world around him, he can just charge forward because he's just that awesome, and considering the themes of the game, this is a very bad thing.

29 minutes ago, KliffIsTheOG said:

The only woman who obsesses over Alm is Faye, who I will admit was not a good edition to the squad. Claire is not madly in love with Alm

Fair enough, obsess was too strong a word, but I believe I get my point across anyway. Three girls are too Alm-centric for my liking. Faye in particular is a mind-boggling inclusion considering Alm already had Celica, with Clair pining for him in the beginning, filling any potential role Faye could've had with her current personality. 

Clair does really fancy Alm, but I might exaggerate this point because I can't stand her relationship with Gray, which is utterly unconvincing. Had they stopped at the B support, it would've been one of the game's best, but instead they just continue to A, making this feel almost like a support with the worst support elements of Awakening and Fates.

Alm's "the ladies want him and the guys want to be him" schtick wouldn't have felt out of place on an avatar, which was my point, and in addition to all the other things that make him seem like the best thing since sliced bread, I believe people would've shouted Gary Stu like there was no tomorrow had we been able to change his name.

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3 hours ago, Cat Villager said:

Was Alm actually THAT aggressive in Gaiden? I re-read the script and outside of "crush those bastards" which is completely understandable given the situation there wasn't anything special that would paint him into a full savage. In fact Rudolf says "I hear that Sofia's young general is a man of compassion" before their grand battle. Also the wiki says he talked in feminine way in OG Gaiden, is it true?  
Another thing is that I don't think the plot is supposed to have intentional your birth doesn't matter aesop. The game beats you over the head with implications that Alm is special starting with prologue and drops hints like crazy. It's just another story about the choosen one.   

Also, FE seems to have serious problems with allowing male protagonists to be wrong. Celica, Eirika and Micaiah all screw up but Alm, Ephraim and Ike can't.

 

I would not put Ephraim in that category. He's honestly closer to what I think Alm should have been like.

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I like Alm as a character in the story, I think the problem were seeing is coming from how the story presents itself as a pseudo first person point of view, we're only seeing the world through Alm and Celica's eyes, and a few times third person. Even when we're wrong we see ourselves as right. 

My only big complaint that comes to mind is how Alm, who grew up in a village would have any idea how politics would work in his world.

When it comes to Alm having his own special weapon, how else could you really make it work. In the earlier games why is it only the Lord's who can use the rapier, there isn't some legend surrounding the blade saying only lords can use it, and it doesn't make any sense why anybody else can't use it.

As for avatar worship, I fucking hate Robin, because how the cast worships him/her like he's the second coming of Crist of being a tactican. Robin invalidates the skill of every lord who came before Robin

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I don't find him all that different from other lords in the series and the lords are never my favourites from the casts, more of the same. The thing that sticks out about him to me is how he wants adventure in the great wide somewhere; and all does is make me want to watch Beauty and the Beast again rather than be playing Echoes.

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I'm... Mixed on him. I don't mind the idea of him being kind and he does have some nice lines and a great VA, but a major thematic of the game is that he's supposed to be aggressive and brash to contrast Celica's naivety. We get to see the latter come into play in a notable way, but with Alm it's not the case. As Thane says, he's very forgiving, he's very kind, and he never really does anything wrong in the story (the only potential exception I can think of being the Nuibaba thing), so we never get to see the flaws of his methods or have him learn from said flaws as much as the game tries to tell you otherwise. He's essentially what the lords have been for the past few games, and in terms of what the game needs out of the character, I do think playing into that mold and thus losing his aggressiveness was a negative to the story.

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I thought he was ok, but agree with the general sentiment that he was too mellow. Like I did enjoy his dialog through most of the game (though all of the dialog is pretty solid in this game) and his moments like reacting to mycen keeping the truth from him was good. But Celica displays a lot more emotion and liked her more because of that but also, that seems weird. Celica is the one who lets emotion get the better of her, she's the one who gets mad, she keeps secrets, she makes decisions she probably shouldn't have ( J E D A H ) for getting swept in the previously mentioned emotions. Feels like she has more "getting mad" CG and dialog. Those feel like traits Alm should have had. If that was intentional, then it could have been interesting: the one with Duma's mark is more reserved & the one with Mila's mark is more aggressive. That could go to the theme of needing each other and working together and blah blah blah. But it feels more like an accidental interpretation than intentional character clashes since no one really brings up celica's fire or ever portrays her as aggressive in dialog.

Like Alm just waits for the rigeleans to respond before moving forward with the counter invasion, then sighs, and orders them to march out.

Actually, you know who I thought Alm would be more like? Chrom. Chrom's a doof but he's a lot more prone to making snap decisions, getting mad, being aggressive and he had that backstory of how his father lead a bloody war. The game, iirc, even draws comparisons between Walhart & Chrom and how Chrom could have been like Walhart (or his dad) but had Robin & other friends as an anchor. 

More shades of Walhart could have been nice alternatively. Celica freaks out over Alm going to war, but Alm never really internalizes it and what it means.

As an aside, though, Alm isn't THAT bloodthirsty & aggressive in the Awakening DLC. I'm looking at the script and...
LB 2: Generic beat me battle quote. Chuckles at a pre-battle joke from Morgan.

There's this ,I guss. "I don't peddle in mercy. I can't afford to. If you want to fight me, then be prepared to pay the price!" but so far as battle lust goes thats kinda tame.


R&R 1. Conversation with Frederick about if he's doing the best for the men he leads into battle. Seems downtrodden.
R&R 2. Super brief battle quote about keeping the land safe
R&R 3. Again, a brief battle quote about keeping the land safe. This one is a bit more aggressive, I guess, since he says they'll have to kill him first.
 

Recruitment does have the most 

"But really, it's a battlefield! How do you compassionately stab someone? It may sound barbaric, but that's just how I feel. If you hurt me, I hurt you back...tenfold."
"No man is a saint. When an enemy wrongs us, it's natural to try and wrong them back. "
But even that's really only the line about hurting back tenfold. And that could just be some basic punching up in the dialog. The second line is even kind of represented by his reasoning for going to war in this game. 

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No. He's bland and forgettable, with little development as a character. They had no idea what they were doing with Alm and made him into an incredibly generic protagonist. He grows slightly as a leader, but is completely uninteresting and has no flaws that he needs to grow out of.

The whole allure of Alm before was that he was presented as impulsive and violent in Gaiden, which is a characterization Awakening's DLC actually carried over. They should have kept that characterization, as it would've made him infinitely more interesting. Heck, the way he's acting in Celica's premonition would have done nicely. Have him angry at the Rigelians for what they did and be all too willing to take Rudolf's head if he doesn't back down. Heck, that would make the end result work much better-- the very man who caused the invasion of Rigel was his own father, unable to raise his sword against him in combat. That would've worked so much better. Alm should've been hotblooded and aggressive-- not utterly generic and peaceful.

Echoes' writing is a huge mess-- they either didn't fix or actively screwed over the original Gaiden part and half-assed the new additions. The only reason people think it's any good is because they're coming off of Awakening and Fates.

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I'm indifferent towards him. Again, so many elements were shown that could have lead to something interesting, but Intelligent Systems kept to the straight path. Not offensive, but a little forgettable.

4 hours ago, r_n said:

Actually, you know who I thought Alm would be more like? Chrom. Chrom's a doof but he's a lot more prone to making snap decisions, getting mad, being aggressive and he had that backstory of how his father lead a bloody war. The game, iirc, even draws comparisons between Walhart & Chrom and how Chrom could have been like Walhart (or his dad) but had Robin & other friends as an anchor. 

More shades of Walhart could have been nice alternatively. Celica freaks out over Alm going to war, but Alm never really internalizes it and what it means.

 

I kinda miss Chrom. He's pretty much the last Lord that was at least somewhat entertaining.

 

Regardless, I still wait for the day that IS truly makes a well-layered protagonist. One day...

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I like Alm as we got him, and I find him to be a likable protagonist. I do wish he had been given a bit more overt development because I think he has a subtle character arc that could have been fleshed out more and I do wish he had a harder time of things, but that's about the only complaints I have about his characterization. And honestly, I'm glad they didn't go with his Awakening characterization, because not only was it based off one line taken out of context from the very end of the original Gaiden, but because knowing IntSys he would have turned out to be an insufferable edgelord or worse, another Walhart.

 
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12 hours ago, Slumber said:

I would have preferred they kept the persona they seemed to be building in Awakening, that Alm was the aggressive, pragmatic, possibly brutal compliment to Celica's peaceful, passive character. Hell, the class he brings to Awakening and Fates has a signature ability called "Aggressor".

Note: Localization only.

Quick slash in Japanese, referring to Iai sheathe draw sword style.

That particular point is moot.

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19 minutes ago, shadowofchaos said:

Note: Localization only.

Quick slash in Japanese, referring to Iai sheathe draw sword style.

That particular point is moot.

Fair enough. 

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