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]

I am so sad and tired and everything is very hard right now and I don't want to live in the worst possible timeline anymore.

In other words, I probably should have slept last night instead of finishing that battle because exhaustion is a hell of a drug.

[sincere]

If Fire Emblem: Three Houses doesn't allow me to pick a female avatar I will be VERY OFF-PUT.

Also, my female avatar should be able to hook up with Claude, because he cuuuuute.

[pict]

1. It does. Unfortunately, she is stupidly sexualised, especially in comparison to her male counterpart. It's so distracting that I had to do my second playthrough as a dude. Check it. Why can't they both have reasonable outfits? Why does the lady need booty shorts and a bare midriff?

2. She can! But I found it more rewarding to pair him with someone who actually has a personality. The Byleths are basically walking corpses.

Plus, 3H goes back to the old Fire Emblem tendency of writing a character's ending based around whomever they get an A-rank with first. For example, there are two dudes that, if they do the thing, one of them marries the other one's little sister in their shared epilogue. There are also some definitively gay options, which I'm excited for.

why am i here. how did i get here. it's over a year later.

[sincere]

I noticed that her outfit was kind of... slutty? I guess? but I think I can live with it. But if the Byleths don't have worthwhile personalities then I doubt I'll have a driving urge to pair them with my faves.

Definitively gay options is exciting! But if the ending is based on the person they A-rank with first, does that mean there's no S-rank stuff? I mean, the S-rank stuff mostly sucks, but I'm still not sure how I feel about the idea that the FIRST pair to A-rank becomes an ending. It doesn't feel like "enough".

[pict]

That's correct and it's honestly fine. Byleth and their chosen mate or what have you are the only pair in the game that get an S-rank scene. I threw my lady Byleth at Seteth, and it was distinctly a marriage proposal. I'm not sure what would happen if it were, say, dude Byleth and Dimitri. I'm assuming there's so S-rank option there at all, because of incompatible orientations, but I'm not 100% sure that there isn't a platonic S-rank option.

For everyone else, it varies. Some dynamics only have C and B levels. Some with C through to A, and then an epilogue clarifying. For example, I had Claude's first A-rank be with a lady from his house. Their support was sweet and tame. Then, they shared an epilogue and in it was, "After years of working side by side, they fell deeply in love and got married." I definitely prefer that to an S-rank of, "we've had three conversations BUT I LOVE YOU, now catch this ring." Especially since Three Houses, unlike Awakening or Fates, has a very well established and concrete timeline.

It isn't always explicitly romantic, either. One is like, "he remained loyal to his liege lord their entire lives and they were eventually buried beside one another." I'm okay with that! To me, it feels like plenty.

But the stronger writing also helps. I still favour the dynamics that exist outside of supports as well as within them, such as the royal kids and their retainers, or the characters that are explicitly childhood friends and act like it, but I don't hate the supports here like I did in Fates. Compare it to, idk, Rinkah and Jakob who are so uncomfortably unpleasant to one another for three whole support levels and then! S-rank! They're in love, they're off to have a baby in the middle of wartime like fucking geniuses! ...I'd much rather do it the 3H way.

[sincere]

Ahhh, okay! It's not so bad if you still get to choose who gets to max out their relationship first. I like that some characters don't even get to have A-rank relationships, given that context. I just need to step back from the way the mobile Fire Emblems have been doing things and think about it differently. The mobile games approach it from the context of: "three random interactions of each available relationship, however unpleasant those interactions might be, all of which can end in spontaneous marriage if the orientations are correct, again however unpleasant the interactions may have been." If this one is more like: "you might have interactions if these characters have a potential connection, and the relationship only develops if they have the potential to become close, and the nature of those relationships may be different depending on the characters involved," then... holy crap, I'm okay with that.

I am stunned by the idea that pairings might develop... over... time?!?? Instead of significant life decisions being made based on a handful of chats during wartime. I like that they're not afraid to go, "A few years after the end of the game, they fall in love," but I also like that the endings aren't necessarily pairing-related. That you can say, "This relationship is the most important one in this character's life," but that doesn't mean they want to fuck. Other kinds of relationships can also be meaningful and worthwhile!!

Obviously I am also 100% on board with the idea that relationships that are depicted in the story and might even be relevant to the story are inherently superior to relationships that play out over the course of the supports........... but I still like supports. And it's nice that I don't have to consider how my pairing decisions will lead to good skills and hair colors for their instant baby.

[pict]

Besides, it's the first pair to A-rank that you watch. So if X reaches A-rank with Y and Z at the same time, you have the choice. You can definitely aim a specific way.

[sincere]

The army trudges through snow a foot deep on our way to the Ice Tribe village, with Flora and Felicia bickering in a cute, apologetic way.

Corrin is still troubled by Iago insinuating there's a traitor in the group, and Ryoma encourages her to be stupid and just believe in everybody. He points out that her "gut feeling" in people is both her weakness and her strength, so she shouldn't try to be something she isn't. Just go with your intuition.

CORRIN: The problem is that my intuition is telling me that Iago wasn't lying.

Good pep talk, though.

[sincere]

At the Ice Tribe village, ish, Flora goes ahead to talk to the elders while we all stand around turning slowly into icicles, except for Felicia, who feels great.

Flora returns with a bunch of thugs and Felicia obliviously gushes, "Everyone is freezing! It's adorable!"

Anyway, Flora can't allow Corrin to live after she betrayed Nohr. She's loyal to her nutbag king! She and Felicia fail to convert each other, so everybody fights with swords and kunai and other assorted weaponry.

[sincere]

Man, did I write out the followup to this last night and then forget to actually click "Post Comment"? Get it together, woman.

[sincere]

Once defeated, Flora admits that she's not loyal to the nutbag king as she is blackmailed with the threat of genocide by the nutbag king. She had no way of knowing if Garon would keep his promise to spare the Ice Tribe if she obeyed him, but she was quite sure he would annihilate everybody if she didn't, soooo.

Corrin is a sweet flower child, and her posse of servants agrees that Flora can come back from this, but Flora disagrees. She sets herself on fire. For some reason the fire is too powerful for Felicia to put out with her ice powers. Do Ice Tribe people also have fire powers? This is a confusing canon.

Anyway, her last words are, "I regret everything," so that was uplifting.