If Fire Emblem Fates was rewritten as one game....

[CyberController]

...which path would you think would make the best story? You pick one, and say what you would improve about it.

For a simpler view:

Birthright: A Lord realizes that their birth family comes from the country that their kingdom is invading, and joins them.

Conquest: Same thing, but the Lord keeps on working for their kingdom.

Revelation: The Lord picks neither side.

[Ertrick36]

You mean if FE Fates was essentially scrapped and the new game basically borrows the general story of one of the paths?

I'd say Conquest could make the best story, but it would need a lot of changes.  The general premise of working for a deprived country with morally ambiguous or outright reprehensible people is a sound concept, and it'd most certainly help if the plot device path was removed from the equation entirely, but even then we still need to give a legitimate reason for the invasion (or rather, focus more on valid reasons instead of vaguely hinting at them and then just focusing on how morally reprehensible your daddy is), make some of the atrocities you commit have some rational backing to them, and make the villain trio not so cartoonishly evil.

Birthright would be the safest choice, but much would need to happen to it to make the world and story more interesting.  More world-building is especially important, and there's a certain stretch in the story that's boring filler which needs to be vastly improved.  It would be not much more interesting than your average FE story, but you play the angles right and you might have a cool Asian spin on a Fire Emblem world.

I honestly can't think of any way to make Revelation nearly as good as the other paths could be, mainly because it's basically built on top of the other paths and needs the other paths to even exist.  Maybe it's also because Revelation's story just feels like this huge rush that has no time to bother with world-building or any other proper development.  The story just feels... void on its own, and it's hard to see that light at the end of the tunnel for it.

[Chconroy]

I'd go with Conquest. You could do it with the Birthright path too, but I think the idea of a morally good person doing evil things for the sake of the end goal is a strong premise. To address the problems, I don't understand why Garon was so adamant on making Corrin suffer after he decided to side with Nohr. Iago I can understand and having him be antagonistic with Hans can showoff the different sides of Nohr in comparison to Corrin and the Nohrian siblings. The plot point regarding Garon being taken over and Azura revealing it to Corrin also needs some major revisions; why does Azura decide to use the one-time crystal ball in front of Corrin and not all the royal siblings, avoiding the need to conquer Hoshido? Why don't Corrin and Azura simply bring them to Valla? Why don't they write down that Garon is corrupted to bypass the curse? 

I very much like the idea of Conquest, but the execution needed to be better in a few places. Though I'll give credit where credit is due, I do think that chapters on the Hoshido siblings was nicely handled. To fix the problem of the reveal, it's either a case of creating more airtight rules to avoid the obvious problems that currently exist. or come up with a different execution to get the same point across. As for Garon, I would've made him less blatantly evil and more like a ruler who's strict; him needing to put a front to hide the corruption could make him appear neutral in comparison to Corrin and the siblings or Iago and Hans (and remove the plot point about him wanting to make Corrin suffer, I don't recall that ever going anywhere).

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I want to say Conquest since on paper that's a very ambitious and unique story concept for this series. But I agonize over the idea of creating an entire roster of hoshidan classes that the player cannot play with outside of Kaze. That would be more enemy-only classes than freakin' Geneology. Really any of these three games would be way better if development time wasn't split between the three versions. Conquest and Birthright would especially benefit since you'd cut all the characters, and their outrealm mutts, from the other version. That is a ton of development time and resources you're getting back to put toward anything else.

I think my idealized version of Fates would be basically Revelation with a short route split in Chapters 6-15 where Corrin does indeed choose between two sides. But in the Nohr route, Corrin is exiled because he keeps sparing prisoners of war and Garon tasks Xander with executing him (which he fails to go through with), and in the Hoshido route he's exiled due to suspicion of his true allegiance (I don't buy that Takumi is the only dude that doesn't trust Corrin, Corrin belongs in a jail cell). So they both funnel into the game's Act 2 where Azura comes clean about Valla, and Corrin starts the process of recruiting his siblings, and the game is basically Revelation from this point onward. Not having to develop entire games (Conquest and Birthright) would make New Revelation way longer and better organized, but I couldn't confidently say that it would fix all of current Revelation's issues, especially those involving the plot, all the issues regarding Outrealms, and having the monumental task of convincingly writing characters that would defect to Corrin's side. 

Edited March 5, 2018 by Glennstavos

[SatsumaFSoysoy]

I'm actually of the opinion that Fates was written (whether by the hired external writer or IS' own team) as one cohesive story that flowed from BR -> CQ -> RV; the route split was not actually a choice, but a three-step story to unveiling the truth. It ended up being packaged and marketed as being choice-based because that was a popular concept in gaming at the time.

It just flows too perfectly to have been intended as a choice. In the prologue, you find out that Garon was never your father after all, and the dark sword he gave you explodes and kills your real mother. Isn't it extremely natural for one to side with Hoshido, avenge their mother and fight against the one that deceived you? And in the entirety of Birthright, no explanation is given for the invisible soldiers, or the invisible man that made your sword explode. While it was initially assumed that it was the work of Nohr, the boat chapter and child Paralogues start to slowly imply that something else is happening. Other questions build up, such as what Leo saw in the crystal, and what happened to Takumi early on in Chapter 9 (the game even tricks you into thinking that the Iago spy plotline was what that was). But otherwise, the route wraps up cleanly, showing you Azura's fate and the two countries making amends.

Then you move onto Conquest, with a few questions in mind, mostly relating to how Garon, Nohr and the invisible soldiers all come together. To begin with, the choice to side with Nohr felt extremely illogical; who would willingly go back to the country that tried to kill you, and succeeded in killing your mother? To get answers from Garon, who is clearly unreasonable, ruthless, and not trustworthy? The whole "choice" to pick Nohr feels like a "What-if"/"New Game+" thing instead of a natural progression. Conquest shows you Valla for the first time, bringing more things into question, such as Gunter's survival and Azura's heritage. Then Garon turns into a sludge man instead of a dragon like in BR, and the full extent of Takumi's possession is shown, to really make you certain that there is more to what's happening beneath the surface.

Now, armed with the knowledge that neither country is at fault, and the desire to seek the truth, you choose Revelation, not siding with anyone so that you can unite them. Admittedly, this route answers much less than it should because they did what it was supposed to do in Invisible History and Heir of Fates (crash grab actually shitting on future cash grab, because Fates had barely any DLC compared to Awakening), but it wraps up the trilogy.

I think the game could have been a lot more interesting if presented as a puzzle, instead of a choice. Locking routes behind money was also a terrible, terrible idea. Many plot points could have been executed better as well, but I don't think the original concept was that bad, they just wasted what they had.

But if I were to answer your original question, it would be a slightly condensed version of all three routes into one longer than average FE game. For example, they could make BR the first 1/3rd of the game, ending in Corrin and co. losing to Garon in the final battle, and Corrin's memories getting wiped, leading to an altered, more dire version of Conquest, but instead of killing Takumi, he is saved (and I guess canon deaths have to be extremely restricted in general), with Revelation wrapping it up by destroying Anankos.

Edited March 5, 2018 by SatsumaFSoysoy

[joshcja]

5 hours ago, CyberController said:

...which path would you think would make the best story? You pick one, and say what you would improve about it.

For a simpler view:

Birthright: A Lord realizes that their birth family comes from the country that their kingdom is invading, and joins them.

Conquest: Same thing, but the Lord keeps on working for their kingdom.

Revelation: The Lord picks neither side.

The main flaws in CQ were a need to sell revelations, a need to sell birthright, and the need to maintain continuity with the other paths.

The main flaw in BR is that every scene is deus ex anime with... no real driving force past that.

The main flaw in rev is everything.

Of the three CQ is the only one with any real chance at a plot driven by human interaction between compelling characters once the overlap is removed.

My ulterior motivation is of course making CQ at least 17 chapters longer. (Split route + unshared maps from BR/Rev)

[Water Mage]

Actually I prefer the single game to be Birthright. Not because it has a simple and safe story, but becauseI think it has more potential as story than the other two. They could focus more on Corrin’s status a Lord who betrayed the country that raised him, having Corrin have hard time getting most of the Hoshidans to trust him. Explore more of Felicia’s “betrayal” of the Ice Tribe, and having Rinkah and Fuga recognize her as a member of the Ice Tribe. Also explore Silas’s betrayal of Nohr. Having Silas agonize over fighting his own countrymen.  Keep the fact that Corrin is not really related to the Hoshidans, but add things like making Ryoma feel guilty about having Corrin betray Nohr over lie, and Corrin being pretty pissed when finding about the truth. Having characters like Oboro realize that Nohr isn’t really an evil country, something like her saying “these poor people really are my most hated enemies?”, having Kaden playing more of a role in the story, considering he’s arguably the oldest character in the game, not counting Anankos and the Rainbow Sage, so Kaden could know about the Valla and so on. Seriously, Birthright has the potential to be a really dark story, even more than Conquest.

[Sunsurge]

3 hours ago, Water Mage said:

Actually I prefer the single game to be Birthright. Not because it has a simple and safe story, but becauseI think it has more potential as story than the other two. They could focus more on Corrin’s status a Lord who betrayed the country that raised him, having Corrin have hard time getting most of the Hoshidans to trust him. Explore more of Felicia’s “betrayal” of the Ice Tribe, and having Rinkah and Fuga recognize her as a member of the Ice Tribe. Also explore Silas’s betrayal of Nohr. Having Silas agonize over fighting his own countrymen.  Keep the fact that Corrin is not really related to the Hoshidans, but add things like making Ryoma feel guilty about having Corrin betray Nohr over lie, and Corrin being pretty pissed when finding about the truth. Having characters like Oboro realize that Nohr isn’t really an evil country, something like her saying “these poor people really are my most hated enemies?”, having Kaden playing more of a role in the story, considering he’s arguably the oldest character in the game, not counting Anankos and the Rainbow Sage, so Kaden could know about the Valla and so on. Seriously, Birthright has the potential to be a really dark story, even more than Conquest.

This would be really nice. I like the idea of the guilt about having Corrin betray Nohr over a lie. Because that's what it was. They both were manipulating Corrin in the end, and in Birthright things got so washed over. I also think the story would have been more powerful if you HAD been half-siblings or full-siblings with the Hoshido side as a whole. I think that would have created a deeper impact than just the throw-away, "Actually you're not related to anyone, but Azura is your cousin."

Otherwise, I think Revelation is the smartest choice in terms of a cohesive, good story. But I'd choose Conquest, because I think it has the most story potential of the three, simply because they could have TOTALLY made you fight from the inside. Like be actually, openly defiant, or take a rag-tag team of soldiers and hide in Nohr underground sewing discord. And then not have the Hoshido nobles know what you're doing, or the Nohr people know and then come out at the end as ruler after unearthing all the truth. Which I guess is more like Revelation, but I like the idea of not being able to convince everyone and working against the Hoshido siblings (and only getting select Nohr ones) to join you, and being seen as the villain despite actually helping everyone.

Really I just love Fates in the sense the storyline could be so cool from ANY direction, and I hate it because they so thoroughly messed it up.

[Solvaij]

8 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

I think my idealized version of Fates would be basically Revelation with a short route split in Chapters 6-15 where Corrin does indeed choose between two sides. But in the Nohr route, Corrin is exiled because he keeps sparing prisoners of war and Garon tasks Xander with executing him (which he fails to go through with), and in the Hoshido route he's exiled due to suspicion of his true allegiance (I don't buy that Takumi is the only dude that doesn't trust Corrin, Corrin belongs in a jail cell). So they both funnel into the game's Act 2 where Azura comes clean about Valla, and Corrin starts the process of recruiting his siblings, and the game is basically Revelation from this point onward. Not having to develop entire games (Conquest and Birthright) would make New Revelation way longer and better organized, but I couldn't confidently say that it would fix all of current Revelation's issues, especially those involving the plot, all the issues regarding Outrealms, and having the monumental task of convincingly writing characters that would defect to Corrin's side. 

I think this is my ideal Fates also (although I think I'd let the rout split go a little farther). One thing I think would also help is making some of the siblings route-exclusive.