… I still haven’t gotten a five star hero and/or Lyn and now I’m just annoyed. Also, I don’t know why they haven’t merged any of those repeats yet that is just a waste.
I’m a big fan of the difference in Fates’s pair-up system compared to Awakening’s. It became much more of a tactical decision than a default way to play, and I liked that a lot.
Totally agreed that Fates’s story is absolute garbage, but the gameplay (in the Conquest campaign, at least) is so astonishingly good that I feel like I can recommend it without reservations to any Fire Emblem fan.
I’ve gotten 3 5 starts heroes but none that I was searching for I guess. Well searching for them makes it harder for oneself in these kind of games, specially if you play it without spending any money, since you can only get heroes every so often. Also they probably didn’t merge the yet for the screenshot, or maybe it’s like PAD where some people use duplicates on teams, dunno.
I’m not even going to start Fire Emblem Heroes. Just once I want a mobile RPG/tactical RPG that’s actually designed for mobile but without gacha. Gacha just kills the whole thing for me.
I know there is one that doesn’t depends on gacha for mobile but I’ve played it and getting characters is a real pain because of how much farming you need to do.
Anyways I’ve been enjoying FE Heroes, it’s pretty simple and I’m okay with that. It made me think about playing the GBA fire emblem games though, never finished those.
Yeah, Heroes is definitely verging on just making me replay the old games and/or finish Fates. I just blew 20 orbs and got three Tharjas, and it’s like…if I can’t even get who I want even after spending money, I’m good. Though I’m sure three Tharjas would make certain people very happy. 
FE7 is fantastic. As I said earlier it’s still my favourite to this day, though the age might get in the way in terms of combat simplicity. Still, I actually prefer it that way.
Sacred Stones was meh.
Sword of Seals got a better translation semi-recently, (like, it came out last year, I want to say?) and I believe the same person who did the translation also did a rebalancing of the game as well.
Sacred Stones is one of my favorites, though you definitely want to make a second save file at a certain point for the full experience. There’s also a fan hack Restoration Queen, if you’re already familiar with the normal script. It only changes the dialogue, and mostly on Eirika’s route, (in an attempt to make Eirika relevant in her own story,) and it also adds some same-sex couples, (mostly female, but there are a few male ones as well. Ephraim and Kyle are one. Sadly, Innes and Joshua just have their standard A support.
Blazing Sword is available on the WiiU eshop. As far as I know, there aren’t any hacks that improve on it, but it’s already pretty solid as is. Unless there’s a hack that removes all the dumb stuff you need to get the “full” ending. And Kishuna. Just give me the ability to slam dunk that guy straight into the trash.
I think the gacha aspect of Heroes has already burned me out. I haven’t actually spent any money on it yet, but I think it just kinda hit me all at once when I got 5-star Takumi twice in a row. Nothing against Takumi himself, but to get two 5-stars in a row only to have them be the exact same is just the kind of luck I don’t need. It certainly doesn’t make me want to spend money now, that’s for sure.
And it feels like random summoning is the better method for building good teams, because promoting is so damn costly. 20,000 feathers to promote from 4-star to 5-star? Even after that Twitter campaign gave everyone 10,000, it still feels like it would take forever to get that many feathers. I’d rather not spend that much time and effort.
It’s not shipping if it’s canon!
[quote=“Kuuribro, post:38, topic:1109”]
I’m part of that old guard that doesn’t like the kids or the shipping[/quote]
[quote=“Kuuribro, post:40, topic:1109”]
(Plus I just detest shipping.)[/quote]
I don’t want this thread to be consumed solely by shippers shipping and arguments about who is best wife and best husband and I hear that sometimes Fire Emblem talk does that. I came in, I declared my ship and we talked about it a bit and moved on. This is good, it shouldn’t dominate the whole conversation. I am not sure if this is why you dislike shipping or if you have deeper reasons and I’m not gonna try to change your mind or shame you for having that opinion. I think any game which has a built in relationships or a support system, like Fire Emblem, is just a fertile ground for shipping and pairing. Especially in games where the player can break the game through it. Like with bloodline shenanigans in Genealogy of the Holy War to make really overpowered characters (Levin x Fury or Tityu x Claude (who are siblings 
)) or skill transfer mischief to achieve the same in Awakening (EVERYBODY GETS GALEFORCE.) But like you and others have said the whole min-maxing munchkin game breaking thing is kind of meh for some (though if you like it, go hog wild.) I’m not gonna disagree. In fact, I prefer to pair characters up who have the best relationship before I’ll pair them up for the best benefit. Oscar and Tanith are real strong because they’re an overpowered earth/earth pair, but I’m not matching them because of that. I like their relationship and their talks and their OP earth/earth bond is just a perk. Compare to how I pair up Cherche and Lon’qu because their relationship is quite good but there’s nothing particularly OP about it. Truly passionate shippers with intensely sincere waifus and husbandos are probably quite bothersome. But, so long as it doesn’t dominate the conservation, it’s really just harmless, innocent, fun and not really hurting anyone. And it’s especially important for LGBTQ+ or gender non-conforming folks who really need representation and weren’t getting much of it until very recently because it’s empowering and actualizing. (Look at how happy Ike being gay made Rudje. 
Look how Ike and Soren being canon (fight me) made fenns wanna play the game. This stuff matters and it seems to only help sell the game and increase its popularity.)
Shippers often have really good reasons for their ship and lots of evidence to support them and I gotta admit I love that. I like hearing about folks interpretations on a game. Sometimes it’s just several lines of dialog which could be interpreted in such a way and isn’t a stretch. Sometimes it’s more of a stretch. But even if it’s like one line of dialog where Ilyana tells Mia she likes pie and the shipper has inserted some innuendo into that statement (even though Ilyana’s whole character is she likes food and eats a lot and that’s it, come on) I’m fine with it. You do you, friend. (Also this alternative character interpretation kind of makes Ilyana a more complex character because now all her food talk might actually be coded language where she’s closeted gay. But look, she just really likes food and is terribly written okay?) If someone is shipping I like to hear their explanation and I’ve rarely been like, “Yeah no, that’s just wrong.” For the most part it’s true to the characters. Even the Ilyana x Mia example above is just curious and interesting to me and doesn’t even really bother me. I try not to judge people’s ships and just be chill with it because who cares. Though, I am not immune to judging. When people ship characters that just have no interaction or chemistry or growth with each other I have to admit that even I, proud and shameless shipper garbage that I am, don’t get it. I’m just scratching my head and wondering where the hell this came from. And when the interaction between them is gross because reasons (like Oliver and Reyson) I can recognize that, yeah that’s a ship but it’s real gross and a bad and wrong ship, friend.
In the end, people are gonna talk about this stuff and it’s gonna be a thing. But I’m gonna do my best to be respectful of you and others and not just shit up this nice Fire Emblem talking thread with ship sperging.
Oh yeah, Heather does seem like she’s interested in women. But also kind of a man-hating lesbian, which, y’know, isn’t the best. Still, good stuff. Not really sure if she has a partner though. I don’t think she gets endings that can be implied to be paired with any female characters but it’s been awhile. To actually talk about something beyond shipping for a moment, I like to consider PoR and RD the games where IntSys really dipped their toes into the water with the gay. And, AFAIK, they really didn’t get much blowback from it. To me, it seemed everyone loved it and widely embraced it but I admit I hang out in crowds that would loudly embrace it and not with the other sort so I’m not sure to what extent angry homophobes condemned the games and flamed IntSys. What I do know is that they back pedaled hugely after those two games. Going back to remaking and re-releasing the old straight is great Shadow Dragon and its sequel (don’t recall any implied gay in those games at all, and no stealth paired endings with same sex characters.) And, beyond Tharja if you have a female Avatar, nothing really gay suggestive in Awakening that I can think of. It’s really frustrating, I have no idea why they backed off. Does anyone know? I’d really like to know because I don’t think there was any pressure to from the fandom. It had to have been internal.
From what I hear you can be gay in Fates but I never tried the games (largely because of the blow up over a certain storyline the gay conversion one.) However, I’ve heard it’s very constrained and limited and, as I’ve already stated, has some, forgive the Tumblr, problematic storylines on certain paths. (Though honestly, these kinds of things aren’t unique to Fates. Uncomfortable and problematic supports has kind of been a Fire Emblem staple. But that doesn’t excuse it. IntSys really should know better by now. IntSys if you are reading this my spouse is fluent in Japanese and I know some as well and I will gladly volunteer to help you make your games gay as fuck for a paltry sum, call me.)
This has turned into one of those infamous Jenner Long Posts that I’m notorious for and I apologize, I’ve been really trying to contain it but I’ve got a lot to say about things. In fact, I really want to talk to fenns about Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn but this post is already so huge. I’ll get to you in a moment fenns but I’m so glad you’ve embraced the truth of Ike/Soren. Because it’s canon, fight me.
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There’s also the Robin and Flavia support conversation in which Robin thinks Flavia’s coming on to her, buuuuuut that one kinda sucks. Ish.
(edit: Ah dang, how did I forget the undertones between Lissa and Maribelle? They were cute together.)
It’s probably either a change of hands or going with heteronormity now that marriage is a mechanic, (also, Shadow Dragon didn’t help since they didn’t put much effort into adding character, thus it has the straightest cast you could imagine.) Either way, hopefully they move faster than baby steps considering how Fates went over. Treehouse, at least, seem like they’re trying their best, They changed Soleil’s support conversation so that Corrin tries to help her keep her composure around women by blindfolding her and pretending to be a girl. Also, she’s just bisexual without magical drugging because she just likes cute people. Though why she still can’t marry women is beyond me. In a similar vein, they apparently also removed a “B-b-b-b-but we’re both girls” thing from the S support with Rhajat, and I only know that because nerds thought it was a bad thing.
I’ve been shouting into the void for ages and they still haven’t asked me to write a Fire Emblem.
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We could build our own Fire Emblem. That’s always a possibility.
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Oh yeah what did happen with Awful Emblem?
I have no clue what that is.
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I don’t want to get into a similarly length post, but my ‘relationship’ with shipping boils down to something I think is rather simple, even if I am, (as I usually am,) in the unpopular opinion camp on it. I (personally) don’t like to theorize or speculate or make connections like that outside of what is presented in the actual game material itself. My mind doesn’t wander to those places, I don’t have fun by making those connections. My fun in a story and in characters is built on what the initial developers have made and presented to me as THEIR story, and I am along for the ride and enjoying what has been hand-crafted and given to me.
I don’t want to hate on people who enjoy shipping, I have friends that are shippers, mostly just because it seems everybody on the internet does that now and I’m one of the lone resistors. But it’s hard not to lump all shipping into one pile which is spoiled by those who create way-too-passionate ships that go entirely against all canon information and personalities given. THAT is what really bugs me, because I know speculators and theorycrafting is where a lot of people get their fun, but to actively go against established information and lore to fit their OTP is disrespectful and spitting on the characters themselves.
I might have gotten my initial distaste for shipping from the homestuck fandom where that shit was RAMPANTLY out of control and everything under the sun was connected to everything else based on 0 canon evidence. So now it’s just one of those things I would be neutral to if I didn’t have a ton of negative experiences coloring my perception of it.
And again, I try really hard not to hate on others who do it, but I really do not like when shipping is forced upon me via game mechanics because none of it feels right. I want a canon, I want characters who either end up with somebody or who don’t and for people to just respect that.
See, I don’t think that’s too outrageous and yeah, Homestuck shipping was crazy. I’m glad you’re not trashing on it and that you understand and I actually think it’s fine that you like things the way the developers intended. It’s cool. You are cool and fine. Some stuff isn’t explicit and just painted on the walls though, some stuff is suggested or implied or very subtle and that’s intentional. It always frustrates me when two characters (usually female) are obviously in a relationship (holding hands and sometimes even kissing) and people are like, “Naw they’re just cousins friends.” Once had someone insist Utena wasn’t bi and I was just, “Yeah no.” So people’s biases can actually lead them to miss creator intent. And when the player can kind of create their own canon by bugging out the game so you marry Julia and begin the Nation of Incest it gets a bit more complicated over what the creator intended. Still, I’m not here to defend or convince. Again, you’re fine. Most stuff is pretty freaking overt and creator intent is mostly obvious.
Let us do this one day. Let us make the gayest Fire Emblem. We shall call it… Flaming Emblem. 
Oh and @fenns
They are and you’re welcome. Path of Radiance is a really, really great game (it’s actually my favorite in the series) and Ike is honestly the best “lord” character they’ve given us. I love it because Ike doesn’t start out a noble, he’s not a prince or whatever like the lords in every other Fire Emblem game. He’s just some dude out in the woods training to be a mercenary with his dad, sister, boyfriend, and a handful of his dad’s friends* and their family. I worry about spoiling the game by sperging more about how great Ike and so many other characters are let alone talking about the story but Ike starts the game with an already present, “Gosh nobles are just so removed from the people and their problems and suck” opinion and as you play through the game the mountain of rich important assholes being terrible racists and complete fuckers grows and grows and Ike just gets increasingly tired of this shit. As someone who also hates rich and powerful assholes who ruin everything and don’t give a shit about me I grew very attached to Ike. He was my kind of people. The fact that he gets made a noble because it’s politically inconvenient to have him keep being awesome as a nobody and him just being so contemptuous of it is great. Ike provided me many joyous hours of gameplay exposing corruption and shitting on nobles and making them cry. 
You had me at “Eat the rich,” comrade.
When you play the game if you wanna A rank the Ike and Soren power couple you have to keep them next to each other as much as possible and make sure you prioritize their support conversations because I think you can only have like one A and one B support or two Bs and one C or some other complicated shit. You don’t want to accidentally put Oscar at B rank and lock Soren out but someone with a bit more savvy on the system would be able to help you better.
Also, if you’re gonna play Path of Radiance you’re also gonna wanna transfer data into Radiant Dawn and play that too because RD is where it really starts getting gay between them and it’s much more overt. But fair warning, RD just isn’t as good of a game as PoR for many reasons. (Most glaring was removing bow vulnerability from wyvern riders, which means you can just solo the game with Jill or Haar because thunder magic is heavy and the enemy can rarely double with it.) The game is somewhat artifically challenging at times, mostly because Sothe and Micaiah suck. Micaiah is very prone to getting RNG screwed (I’ve actually never gotten a good Micaiah and I’ve played RD about a dozen times.) And Sothe just doesn’t have the growths or strength to even fulfil his role as a Jeigan, let alone stick around for the long haul. (But, I mean, what rogue type can really compete with Volke?) Their mutual frailty means you spend a lot of time playing escort mission with them, babying them and feeding them kills for a really long time. Like, up until the end game long, which isn’t fun. Part of the joy of Fire Emblem is taking a character like Marty (the Marty party never ends, my friends) and slowly growing him into an effective unit who can carve through waves of enemies and be safely parked on choke points with little concern. But Micaiah and Sothe rarely, if ever, get to that point. (In fact, I’m not even sure Sothe can pan out. His growths are so stunted and his caps always seemed low to me.) And Micaiah is mandatory, so you’ve just gotta learn to love your wax paper trash lord and deal with it. That’s just mechanics, character-wise is a whole nother bugbear. Their whole interplay and characterization just rubbed me the wrong way for a real long time. It’s been a few years since I’ve played RD but I distinctly remember feeling like they were just screaming each other’s names back and forth at each other from across the field while insisting they loved each other without any real meat or development. It was all tell, no show for hours. And to even get more development from them you had to deploy them and build their supports, which I remind you means playing double escort mission and what masochist wants to do that? (It’s me, I did it. And let me tell you, Zihark, Jill, and Nolan are the real heroes of the Dawn Brigade. Keeping Micaiah and Sothe alive so I could see their fucking storyline.)
Eventually they get better and their somewhat canon otp relationship (can’t she marry the prince? Do that imo) really blooms and I like how they support each other, draw strength from one another, and back one another up. But that’s just copy and pasting from the Ike and Soren book of good relationships. They have the exact same thing going on but even better. By the way, building up Micaiah’s support with Sothe claims one of her very limited support slots with dead weight for the glory of storyline and makes her even more vulnerable. (The sacrifices I make for storyline!) In comparison, Ike and Soren are pretty much RNG proof and you’re almost guaranteed to have a real strong set up with them paired up. Even though it isn’t as over powered as, say, A ranking Ike with Oscar and earth/earth dodge tanking through the game. I think Soren’s shadow affinity gives Ike some Resistance? I don’t remember. Whatever he gives Ike it’s nice but not game breaking. This doesn’t matter though because their relationship is more important.
*Titiana has some vaguely understated deeper, more personal, and perhaps even intimate relationship with Ike’s dad.
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Well, I’ve had the Unity course on Udemy for a long time this would be good to learn how to use it.
The Tellius games are probably my favorite of the lot, and I think it’s because it was the largest departure from the series as a whole (aside from like…Gaiden). Ike’s whole character arc is a neat subversion of the typical Lord, and the character designs are some of the nicest I’ve seen in any game period. I know Radiant Dawn gets nitpicked for having its plot fall apart, but I’ve never taken issue with what seem to be the main complaints. The support situation in that game is unfortunate though.
I would answer that but FP made a much better response on SA so here you go. Short version: We’re stuck for technical reasons but we have the vast majority of Act 2 done and just needs to be assembled. Long version:
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I don’t know if I’d say it’s my favorite, but Path of Radiance is one of the most solid games in the series. I actually just started playing it again, given how often it’s come up in the thread.
Ike’s, uh… not had the best luck getting strength. I had to give him Boyd’s Fighter Band while he was out of battle.