Fire Emblem: Fates liveplay! (inactive)

[sincere]

Shut up.

I don't think people livestream Nintendo 3DS without equipment and expensive/obnoxious jury rigging, so, screw that, even if I wanted to. I will update this post throughout playing on my commentary etc.


Currently: Chapter 17

Support threads link for my reference

Comments

[sincere]

So I bought Birthright, because people suggest playing it first / it's easier / I'm a wuss. I literally sat in my mother's house waiting for it to download before going home after work. It took a while! I also had to borrow an SD card because it was bigger than I'd expected.

P.S.: It seems like a significant amount of characters in this iteration of the series are full siblings. I don't... I mean, I love me some family feels, and I gather there's lots of family drama to be had, but it seems like that could get in the way of my relentless omnipotent matchmaking. What do you think I play Fire Emblem for?

[sincere]

It goes without saying that I picked a lady Avatar. I went with most of the defaults for her because, unlike Fire Emblem: Awakening, the Fates Avatar is actually in all the promotional material. I've seen so much artwork of her (or her dude counterpart) already that I have a mental image of her. That's... that's what she looks like, with the super pale blond hair to her waist.

Also, she's barefoot? I fucking love that. I think 90% of the reason I bought this game is because the protagonist is barefoot. Look at these fucking heroes. Shoes are for the weak.

[sincere]

As per usual, we start off in the middle of a dramatic battle! Two armies clashing! Knights fight samurai! General Handsome Blond of Nohr and General Brunet Hedgehog of Hoshido are facing off with extreme prejudice!

General Handsome Blond: Corrin! Come fight with us!
General Brunet Hedgehog: No! Corrin will fight with us!
Handsome Blond: She's my sister!
Brunet Hedgehog: No, she's MY sister!
Handsome Blond: Nuh-uh!!
Brunet Hedgehog: Yuh-huh!!

Assorted siblings from both sets of royal families come in to bicker over who Corrin belongs to. Do you feel loved, Corrin?

It's pretty excellent, but of course it's just a prophetic dream, because that's how we start Fire Emblems.

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A small army of servants wakes up Corrin and gets her dressed and ready to go duel with General Handsome Blond Xander, the oldest of the Nohr siblings. He calls Corrin "little princess", which I think is unspeakably adorable.

Anyway, the Nohr siblings are excessively adoring of Corrin, because she is definitely their sister. Second oldest is Camilla, who is full of boobs and casual molestation vibes, and then Leo, who is a mage and VERY DEFENSIVE ABOUT IT. Then there's baby Elise, who looks evil but seems genuinely sweet, so I guess she's not really Rhode. (Unless she's genuinely sweet only with her family... like Rhode?!? Dun-dun-dun)

[sincere]

Corrin thanks everyone for being patient with her during her mandatory amnesia period, which I'm sure is irrelevant because she is definitely a princess of Nohr, and also for visiting her while she has been held prisoner in this fortress for years because [reason not found].

But today she gets to leave and meet Dad for the first time in a long time! H... Hooray! Looking forward to it!

[sincere]

King Garon congratulates her for not sucking as a warrior, then gives her a sword. Xander does not seem comfortable about it, but don't ask any questions, it's a great gift.

Now, kill these defenseless Hoshidans with it!

[sincere]

The Hoshidans are ninja Kaze and bodybuildress Rinkah, and they seem a little surprised when introduced to Nohr Princess Corrin even though there is definitely nothing weird about her. But Corrin is not thrilled to be commanded to slaughter defenseless prisoners and wants to show them mercy -- even going so far as to defend them when King Garon launches an attack at them!

Corrin in case you were wondering this reunion with Dad is not going well

Leo pretends to murder the Hoshidans so that Dad and Corrin are both happy, and then they let them go. Literally everyone, including one of the freed prisoners, tells Corrin that she is too fucking nice and it will someday get her killed.

[sincere]

The fortress we're checking out is right above a bottomless chasm. Corrin is delighted to see it, and also everything, because she has never been outside before.

Oh yeah, but the fortress on the Hoshidan border is inhabited by Hoshidans and we're breaking a peace treaty by coming at the castle. Corrin wants to abort the mission and try to resolve this peacefully, but the convicted murderer commits a murder right in front of everybody (surprise!) and now the Hoshidans are determined to kill us, so we have to kill them first. Bummer.

[sincere]

Hoshidan reinforcements begin arriving after we check out the castle, and we begin to retreat. Covering the retreat are... the Nohr royal siblings! All of them! They just love their wonderful sister Corrin so much that they had to stalk her on the mission to make sure she'd be okay.

During the retreat, Corrin and Manservant #1 (Manservant #2 is noted to have disappeared at some unknown point) meet up with Convicted Murderer, who says that he was under orders from the king. Hmm... It's like King Garon wanted all this to happen??

Then a rapid assortment of weird things happens.

[sincere]

In an alternate plan of existence, Lilith the former-stablehand and current-dragon explains that Corrin saved her life years ago, thinking she was a wounded bird. Since her family and friends and everybody are super dead, Lilith vowed to protect Corrin forever. Now that she's used her dragony powers she cannot go back to being human again.

Anyway, let me just make a castle for you to nap in, and then we'll go back to real reality. Okay?

Lilith: Be careful when you return! You could be ambushed!
Corrin: I'll be ready.
Corrin: *isn't*

[sincere]

Corrin has been kidnapped by Raikah the awesome super buff lady and Kaze the generic ninja dude. They bring her to the Hoshidan capital, where she is immediately hugged. WELCOME HOME, SISTER!

They explain that Corrin is actually a Hoshidan princess who was kidnapped by King Garon after he killed their dad when she was a little girl. Corrin has no idea what anyone is talking about, but it's hard to argue with all these people crying on her because she is their long-lost sister. They try to make her feel at home and comfortable and give her space to think, and she gamely goes along with it, but she doesn't really have any connection to these people and she misses her Nohr family. Props for authenticity.

[sincere]

Hoshidan cast rundown! We have Ryoma, the oldest sibling with the hedgehog hair. (He got it from Dad, apparently.) I think that Corrin is the next oldest, and then Hinoka is younger than her -- she did most of the crying, because she adored Corrin when she was tiny and followed her everywhere. Ryoma tells us that she cried for months after Corrin disappeared, then stopped crying one day, picked up a naginata, and became a killing machine.

Then there's little brother Takumi, who is gruff and untrusting, and baby sister Sakura, who is cute and healy.

Huh, they are perfect counterparts to the Nohr siblings. Ryoma-Xander, Hinoka-Camilla, Takumi-Leo, Sakura-Elise.
ETA: Hoshido family to the right, Nohr family to the left, Corrins facing each other in the middle, two servants on the fringes of each side.

Anyway, lastly, we have Mom! Mikoto is gentle and beautiful and wise and all those other things you need to have in your tragic leader. She is single-handedly preventing the evil kingdom of Nohr from invading.

Corrin: Wait, wut

[sincere]

While Corrin is brooding alone, she meets Azura, who is singing to herself in the lake. Azura is Corrin. I mean, she's the Nohr/Hoshidan counterpart to Corrin. I mean... Shortly after Corrin was kidnapped from the Hoshidan royalty and brought to Nohr, Azura was kidnapped from the Nohrian royal family and brought to Hoshido. And apparently King Garon and the siblings were like, "Whatever, Corrin's way cooler and we love her more, just forget about Azura," I suppose.

Anyway, Azura likes it here and likes the Hoshidans and thinks the Nohrians are evil, so she doesn't want to go back. Just here to give you another parallel!

[pict]

I fucking love AZURA, she's such a nice twist on the typical archetypes of her JRPG trope. Also, my phone venerates her name to the point of all-capping it consistently.




If you need a ridiculous supply of f!Corrin/AZURA fanart, let me know. This game committed the crime of giving me an OTP.

[sincere]

A week or so after coming to Hoshido, Queen Mikoto is planning to make a grand public announcement to tell everyone that Princess Corrin is back. As they're milling about in public, an extremely creepy man you'd think security would have kept out starts to cast a spell of some sort.

The sword that King Garon gave to Corrin as a gift suddenly goes flying straight for the creepy man, allowing him to cast his devastating spell that tears through the city.

Emm-- Mikoto dives in front of Corrin and protects her from the attack, sacrificing her own life.

[sincere]

Corrin takes this all in, shocked, and then has a flashback to her father's death and King Garon taking her away -- and then she flips out and transforms into a dragon.

You know... As you do.

[sincere]

Anyway, Nohr is attacking and it's time to get to the prologue battle. General Handsome Blond, I mean Xander, is relieved to see Corrin alive, but Corrin has some tiny reservations about everything now, like this whole manipulated into being the vessel for the assassination of her mother thing, and the part about being kidnapped as a child and raised as a lie, and the weird stuff about Nohr being evil with dark mages who use unholy abominations to terrorize the innocent, all that.

Xander assures her that he already knew that she wasn't really his sister, and he doesn't care. She was raised as his sister and she'll always be a sister to him. Come back to us, Little Princess. :( AWWW.

BUT CORRIN IS MY SISTER
NO, SHE'S MINE
NUH-UH!
YUH-HUH!

And now I-- wtf I get to choose?

Why do I get to choose

I bought Birthright, I thought that meant I would be automatically Hoshidod

I have to tell Xander to his face that I don't love him enough to go with him? :( And Camilla and Leo and Elise??

I mean, logically speaking it makes a ton of character sense for Corrin to refuse at this point, but still. Her Nohr siblings love her so much. :( ACK

[pict]

It's because after you finish your cartridge game, you can download the DLC for the other two routes which takes place in pretty much the same fashion - after the first six chapters, you end up here, and it's

SIDE WITH HOSHIDO
SIDE WITH NOHR
TAKE A THIRD OPTION

... with route availability determined by what game you started with and what DLC you own. It's a costly gimmick, but I totally bought into it. >> (Heehee, bought into it.)

I played Conquest first, mainly because I was under the false impression that Azura wore her black dress through-out all of it, so I've played through those stupid chapters quite a few times now.

[sincere]

I was afraid that when I chose Hoshido that in typical video game fashion the dialogue would take it to some ridiculous place where Corrin feels no guilt and hates you evil guys, but it doesn't go that way! Instead, Corrin says lots of rational things about how she doesn't want any of them to fight and she wants to find neutral territory, but Nohr is the aggressor here, she can't go back while Nohr is determined to go to war. These are all IC and reasonable things with an emotional struggle that soothes my ruffled soul.

Still, it's a little heart-breaking. Xander is so obviously torn and hurt and confused -- he attacks her and miserably intends to kill her, but Ryoma steps in to protect her, telling her not to be a martyr, and then Xander is furious at him, snapping that YOU CAN'T TAKE MY SISTER AWAY, you know, the sister I was about to kill. Shut up. All of the Nohr siblings steadfastly resolve to take Corrin back so they can convince her to change her mind, and they're all unhappy about having to fight her to do it.

We fight with--
Nothing, really. Ryoma takes out Xander before the first turn is over and then the battle ends as the Nohrians retreat. We literally didn't even have an opportunity to gain any support points, so the MVP of the fight was "No one". Oops?

[sincere]

Then the opening CGI plays, because I got past the game intro.

After the fight, Lilith teleports everyone back to the dragon plane and introduces me to the fact that I get a ~*~castle~*~!! Now for the first time the game lets me off its prologue leash and I get to do stuff with my minions.

TANGENT

[sincere]

I don't like the fact that dudes determine the kids? It made sense to me that in FE:A, the mother determined who the child would be, the dad just contributed DNA -- I mean, that seems like it makes logical sense, inasmuch as the fact that the child will be the same regardless of one parent. The mother has the egg that becomes a baby once fertilized, the dad just... contributes DNA, so you can rationalize that the egg is the same when--

You know what, pondering this is too weird for me.

Anyway, I just felt like same mom -> same kid makes more sense than same dad -> same kid.

SUPPORT THREADS

[sincere]

JAKOB

[sincere]

[untonuggan]

goddammit now i want to play this

[sincere]

It comes on like a bolt of lightning and wouldn't go away until I played it

I'm pretty sure this is how I played FE:Awakening, too. I picked it up and couldn't put it down for like a solid week.

[sincere]

Moving on, about thirty seconds after arriving at Fort Jinja to help with the wounded, Nohrians have us surrounded. We are introduced to Sakura's retainers, who are not nearly as professional as Corrin's retainers, Hana the bff and Subaki the glory hog.

The Nohrian commander is like, "HEY CORRIN HEY! REMEMBER ME? YOUR CHILDHOOD BEST FRIEND?" and Corrin is like, "...no."

This could be a trick! Let's everyone kill each other just in case.

[sincere]

Oh... how cute! Silas has his normal expression on if most characters attack him, but if Corrin attacks him the pre-battle analysis shows him with a sad face!

In the actual fight, dialogue. "I became a knight in the hope of seeing you again, but..." That's adorable. Anyway, he's one of a lot of people who want to take her back to Nohr like it or not, but we wipe the floor with him.

[sincere]

Corrin refuses to kill him, even though he's waiting for it, because she thinks it's odd that despite the king's orders he seemed reluctant to lead his troops into battle -- maybe even didn't want to win?

He says, "I value an oath I made long ago more than my own life." She always wanted to see the world outside the fortress, so one day he made a picnic and they took a few hours to explore! Illegally! They almost had him executed when he returned, but Corrin didn't let them.

That seems memorable! Oh yeah I did have a childhood friend named Silas

Corrin: So... if you'd die for me, you'll help me kill King Garon too, right??

Man, that is some... very strong friendship.

[pict]

Fucking Silas.

Kay, remind me to link you to a thing.

[sincere]

Last night I played a couple of random generic battles (do I not get those in Conquest? But I love them, how else will I build up supports?) so I have some supports to watch. Then, gameplay!

[pict]

Nope, Conquest only gives you storyline-mandated battles. Plus, only one of the DLC maps actually gives you EXP (Boo Camp!). So, you know, play Conquest on Easy is my advice. I was so surprised when I did Birthright and hoshit, random encounter battles!

[sincere]

I want to feed Lilith something other than radishes

[sincere]

God I love these stupid little details, all the castle management nonsense and the characters staffing the stores and every part of the mess hall shenanigans, where some random character cooks some random dish based on the ingredient you pick and then other characters decide whether or not they like it and different characters have different food preferences

Cooking 4eva

[sincere]

Paralogue 1: I recruited a villager. She does not have a pot on her head.

[pict]

Think of how much better life would be if she did, though?

I actually love Mozu, though. She looks so shy and naive but in truth, she's super full of sass.

[sincere]

Hoshidan Brother #1 Ryoma and Hoshidan Brother #2 Takumi have disappeared, so we're on our way to find them when we get ambushed by some Faceless. Kaze and Corrin fight them off without my help, but suddenly the Faceless corpses turn into -- ordinary people. There was an illusion making these innocent villagers seem like monsters to us!

Iago, King Garon's not at all sinister bff, appears to cackle about how ignorant Corrin is and she's fair game now, then disappears again. So long!

So now we have some Wind Tribe corpses as we head through the Wind Tribe territory, and they love that.

[sincere]

It seems like each of the royal siblings comes with two retainers: Hana and Subaki belong to Sakura, and I think Saizo and Orochi are Ryoma's, and now Hinoka is here with Azama and Setsuna. She definitely drew the short straw so far.

Hinoka is stuck in quicksand the Wind Tribe village, where this normally neutral tribe is out for our blood. After the battle, the Wind Tribe chief is like

SURPRISE

I WAS JUST TESTING YOU

I KNOW WHO YOU ARE

I WAS BFFS WITH YOUR DAD

seriously tho why did you kill those dudes

[sincere]

The chief tells Corrin that the magic sword she got after her dragon berserker incident, the Yato, can literally end the world. Corrin is like, oh, that's cool. Anyway, we've gotta run, brothers to save.

So the chief just gives us a twelve-year-old boy, because my son is driving me bonkers he will be a valuable asset for your team.

[sincere]

SUBAKI: What's this? I'll have to find its owner.

[Received Subaki's Pike]

Don't just pretend you don't recognize it! Are you trying to foist your garbage on me!

[sincere]

We arrive at Izumo, Kingdom of the Gods! It's historically neutral in all conflicts, so if our brothers have disappeared near here, things might be super bad. The party meets with Archduke Izana, who looks very beautiful and serene and is actually some sort of guttersnipe, to go by manners and speech. "Voted best hair in Izumo five years running!" he brags.

He doesn't know of any battles nearby, obviously impossible, Izumo is like, super peaceful. So let's all relax! Especially Corrin and Sakura! Privately! And alone!

[sincere]

Gasp! Izana is not actually Izana! He's a dark mage of Nohr in disguise! And he wants to kill Corrin and Sakura! But just the two of them. What's Nohr got against cute healers, anyway? Though apparently, Corrin is famous.

Fortunately, our party is the bestest, and rescues us! Hinoka was suspicious because she's the only legit Hoshidan princess who wasn't invited obviously the real Archduke Izana wouldn't have been such a guttersnipe.

We fight with swords.

[sincere]

The impostor refuses to tell us where the real Izana is, and he's making his escape when suddenly he gets captured and stopped... by Leo

oooooh Nohr family feels

Leo finds Zola despicable and pathetic, but Corrin interrupts him before he can murder the man, making a lot of idealistic words about how Leo would definitely never harm a fellow Nohrian, right? He attempts to sneer at her, but when she pleads with him he mutters about how she can keep the creeper if she likes him so much, and then takes off.

Corrin is distressed that he's upset with her. Everyone else is intimidated, because Leo's magic was some serious business.