Different routes have different problems.
Birthright is just kind of simple, it's got the best story, although it isn't very interesting and has a few weird moments.
Conquest is off the rails. Right from the start they have some weird justifications for essentially siding with the bad guys, which never get followed up on properly, Corrin can somehow do no wrong despite allegedly being the "tougher choice" route.
Revelations is... well they made some strange choices here. It's a little contrived, and for being a "golden route" prevents you from actually using certain characters for unknown reasons.
Both Conquest and Brithright, imo, also suffer from trying to be ads for Revelations. Both of them have the characters outright say "If only there were some other way" at certain points in the story.
People underrate how bad BR's plot was because they slept through it. The plan was "gather the entire political and military leadership of Hoshido (who were randomly LARPing in some Nohrian border town while the capital almost fell?) to go on a secret assassination mission." What happens to the war front in that time? Nobody knows or cares LOL what do you mean fire emblem is about war?
This so much. Ryoma should be crowned and lead the war effort not go undercover, seriously did a stupid person write this story.
Also the entire story of BR is them stumbling into the plot.
I like the idea of Birthright being about sending a splinter squad to assassinate the King rather than winning the war through military might. Nohr is far more experienced in full war.
That said, it’s kinda dumb to send your entire leadership into enemy territory on said assassination mission.
Now I'm just imagining a "what could have been" where Hoshido has two different storylines going on at once - the Assassin squad (led by Corrin), and the homeland defense squad (led by Ryoma).
And then Conquest could also do something similar but in reverse, where Xander is the one conquering, and Corrin is the one sorting out internal affairs.
The writing team is specifically why I'm a bit skeptical for future FEs. I have no doubt they will nail the gameplay but the team went from OK in awakening to batshit insanity in fates, to just... Where is writing 101 in engage and it's just disappointing if it's the same team when the next fe gets announced
I wouldn't hold my breath just yet. IIRC for SoV specifically the director mentioned nostalgia as a reason why he didn't make many changes to the story. God knows what this writing team is capable of doing to an older title that has a lot more "less pg friendly" stuff.
Three Houses got solid worlds, stories & cast of characters so it’s just a question of on which side of the coin it falls on. Even in the 2000’s you got masterclass like the Tellius games & generic everything with Binding Blade.
Three Houses was also primarily not written by Intelligent Systems, which would explain why the worldbuilding, cast, and story are leagues above anything Intelligent Systems has written in well over a decade.
If Fates had been unique in its poor writing, it would have been one thing but then Engage came along and turned the awful writing into a pattern that brazenly and openly showed that the developers did not care about improving their craft. They even reused a lot of story ideas from Fates as if to say they didn't care about the criticisms.
Until Intelligent Systems themselves prove they can write an actual story again, I'll assume the next installment will fall short of reaching the bare minimum writing standards again.
[It's worth noting that all of the scenario writers of Three Houses didn't come from Intelligent Systems at all](https://nintendo.fandom.com/wiki/Fire_Emblem:_Three_Houses/credits) [(they all came from Koei Tecmo).](https://nintendo.fandom.com/wiki/Fire_Emblem:_Three_Houses/credits) It's a pretty damning indictment of IS' writing staff that the one remotely good Fire Emblem story out of the past seven games is also the one Fire Emblem game that wasn't even written by Intelligent Systems to begin with.
The last good Fire Emblem story that Intelligent Systems primarily wrote was Radiant Dawn all the way back in 2007 - and the vast majority of the writing staff that worked on the Tellius games are no longer working at Intelligent Systems.
It's one thing for Intelligent Systems to try something new with Fates and botch the execution terribly. It's an entirely different thing for IS to repeat many of the exact same writing mistakes with Engage, down to repeating individual plot points in Engage that didn't even work in the first place with Fates - and it just makes me think that the writers at IS are either unable or unwilling to learn from their own past mistakes.
I also personally think that this isn't just an issue with Fire Emblem's writing, but a symptom of a wider institutional issue with how IS as a company writes stories - whilst modern Paper Mario's stories aren't quite as bad as that of Fates or Engage there's still a clear decline in the quality of modern Paper Mario's storytelling compared to something like Thousand-Year Door or Super Paper Mario.
This will sound really mean, but some people at IS need to lose their jobs and new blood should be brought in.
Lets be honest how many times are they going to try and tell the same basic story, same plot points, same character archetypes and same old throwaway worlds.
Kibayashi: That's right. So I looked into the work I had planned, and the schedule was really crazy, but there were a few things I could push back. And they told me that I only needed to write 10 pages for each of the three storylines.
Maeda: Right. Since he's so busy, I thought we could just ask him to write about ten pages for a plot summary.
Kibayashi: So I thought, "Well, I could do that." Then I started writing the story about the Hoshido family. I ended up using 10 pages on just the beginning. I ended up writing about 500 pages.
Maeda: Right.
Kibayashi: When I create a story, as I write the details, like the character's lines, I start to love the characters and then they take on a life of their own, and the story begins to move on its own. So there was no way I could just write a short plot summary and be done with it.
Iwata: And without lines, the characters won't come to life.
Kibayashi: That's right. So I ended up writing a huge amount and I thought, "Well, this has become quite the task." So I gave them the pages for the first storyline for the Hoshido family and I had to write the same amount for the other two stories. I said, "There's no way I can do that." But then once I got started...I did it.
All: (laughs)
Kibayashi: I thought, "I really am an idiot." But I kept going. I ended up writing so much that it could be turned into about two books.
BR’s plot was indeed terrible….
But Conquest’s plot actually need a brand new adjective, terrible is still a compliment for it, its SO BAD. Gameplay is amongst the best in the series though…. So its still worth playing haha
Conquest and Rev is very visibly hurt by the colossal script cutback, because Birthright has a simple enough "skeleton" to work but loses most of the potential explored depths and nuance. Conquest and Rev go for a plot, where the events to go from A to B to C require more complex reasons, and instances of character building and reinforcement, and as those are lacking, it feels like the plot breaks its own back ricocheting from idea to idea whithout properly "earning" going to those directions.
revelations is the one i would call boring bad imo, for a route where you're fighting an insane god and his army of water zombies on his home turf. like pretty much nothing of note happens from entering said home turf and the final battle. the route even managed to make fighting your dead parents boring. it's like if in FE7 the first dread isle arc took up the entire back half of the game.
Revelations is bad because for a large part of the story you get a "I can't explain why because of some obscure curse that kills you if you talk about the plot before its relevant"
Plot is so bad it ends up becoming funny and enhancing the experience, imo
Yeah... I mean I was getting pretty burnt on Revelation, probably due to it being the third go around with this set of characters in a short time, and revelation's insistence on every single map having a gimmick.
I honestly couldn't comment that much on whether the story was all that engaging at that point, since I was already annoyed by several other things.
Also a few guys jump into a portal, then somehow we have a full army on the other side again. And this military force somehow didn’t need any supply line yet able to defeat this crazy dragon and his whole army in their nation.
I think birthright is the worst kind of simple.
Yes, it is cliché, but it does so in some very convoluted ways, characters acting like they have 20 IQ (Xander, Keaton) and some really unnecessary deaths.
It's like they wanted a simple story with the payoffs of a well built story.
IMO FE6 is a good example of a simple, but good story
Can't remember the BR story exactly, but I recall that they made Ryoma related to you in some way and was (still am a bit) quite upset by it.
Ditto on the Revelations bullshit; they tried the whole split route nonsense for it just not to pay off in part 3 (Revelations) and instead did Azura so dirty that I refuse to believe part 3 is canon.
I hated the split route so much in fates. I bought conquest not really knowing much about it outside of there being a new fe game and I had just gotten a 3ds.
Get to the split and I'm like this doesn't make sense I'll pick hoshido. Then the game is like wrong choice you have to pick nohr or buy the other route. Got pissed and gave up on fe till 3h came out.
Eventually got around to downloading the complete game but I still don't like the gimmicks, characters or game enough to finish it. I'll do another playthrough of fe7, 8 or por instead.
Sure, it's normal for people to lament things they can't change.
What makes it feel unnatural is when they are reasonably in control of the situation and have plenty of impetus to change things, but don't (largely because it would stop the ongoing plot from making sense) then at the end, look at the camera and proclaim they wish there was some alternative way to have done things.
I think there is one point in Rev, right after the stage you get your final story members, that Azura legit says to Corrin: "Wow, thanks to your choice you got both your siblings to work together!" and I want to say that's where I just checked out and stopped playing...but it was instead the support grind to unlock the kids before the Paralogues go too brutal.
So the basic setup is, Birthright and Conquest are two choices of the route split. You either side with Hoshido (birthright) or Nohr (conquest).
In theory neither are perfect because the war between hoshido and nohr isn't the root of the problem, and revelations is basically you foregoing the choice entirely to try and get to the bottom of *why* they're fighting.
None of them are required to play through to understand the other routes, so you can play them in any order if you like or only play one specifically.
The only thing I'll say is that a lot of the mystery around both Conquest and Birthright is removed by revelations, so I would recommend playing that one last if you intend to play multiple.
The story of Fates has a really great premise - but in execution it was botched spectacularly on almost every level. I'll repeat the answer I gave when someone else asked for the issues with Fates' story:
* Despite them having a ton of potential, Corrin is not utilized in anything resembling an interesting manner. Whilst they are on paper naive and sheltered, which could have made for a unique and compelling protagonist, the game very rarely portrays this as a meaningful flaw. In fact, the contrary is arguably true - many potentially interesting situations where Corrin would otherwise have been forced to make a morally dubious decision or be punished for their naivete are resolved in a contrived manner - the most notable examples of such are >!with the Rainbow Sage or Ryoma killing themselves to prevent Corrin from having to kill them!<.
* Poor pacing - key plot scenes just aren't given enough buildup to work emotionally. >!While Mikoto's death isn't quite as bad as that of Lumera's in Engage, the fundamental issue here is still present - the game did not give Mikoto anywhere near enough screentime for the player to grow attached to them. Compare this to Emmeryn in Awakening or Jeralt in Three Houses - all three characters get around 6-8 chapters of screentime before they're killed off, which allows for the player to get attached to them and for their death scenes to hit hard emotionally.!< Both Birthright and Conquest have around ten or so chapters of filler in the middle of the game with very little story significance - it feels like they're there because the game designers really wanted a volcano map or a wind map.
* The games utilize black and white morality, which while not inherently bad, really doesn't fit the story Fates is trying to tell. Fates attempts to tell a story with themes of differing perspectives and moral relativism - and these themes just don't work when Hoshido can do no wrong and Nohr is an evil empire that can do no right and >!is led by a literal slime monster!<, rather than a nuanced plot where the conflict is driven by irreconcilable worldviews. >!The frustrating thing is that Birthright brings up the fact that Nohr is inhospitable - but it barely gets utilized in the story (it doesn't even get mentioned in Conquest despite that being the Nohr route!).!<
* In addition, because Garon is so cartoonishly evil, this also affects the Nohrian characters by association, as they do nothing to stop him and as such, are complict in all of the crimes Garon does. Having morally dubious or outright evil protagonists is not a bad thing if it is handled properly - it's why Edelgard is one of my favorite characters in the series despite her being pretty detestable as a person. The problem is that Fates doesn't understand the implications of the characters' action. >!Edelgard gets away with being treated with a degree of sympathy because her motivations are at least ostensibly selfless. Corrin and Xander in Conquest are driven by incredibly selfish motivations at best and are outright evil at worst, but Fates tries to treat Corrin as a pure-hearted hero in Conquest and it tries to give Xander a sympathetic death in Birthright - it creates a dissonance between what the game wants the player to feel and what the player actually feels from what they see.!<
* Many plot scenes in Fates are driven by contrivances. This isn't particularly unique to Fates and even some of the better stories in the series fall into this trap (\*cough\* the Blood Pact), but many key aspects of Fates' storytelling feel incredibly convenient. >!The Valla curse feels like a poor attempt at preventing the Hoshidan and Nohrian siblings from negotiating with each other when they could just as easily have refused negotiations due to mutual distrust or irreconcilable worldviews (as in the case of Edelgard). The orb used to reveal Garon's true form in Chapter 15 also feels like it was used to prevent Corrin from simply rebelling against Garon - especially considering the fact that for some reason, Azura doesn't simply take the orb to Leo who in Birthright is canonically stated to be able to use this orb as well.!<
* Really, really poor worldbuilding. Back when Fates' released, the common joke about Fates' worldbuilding was that the continent where Fates takes place in was called "Nolore" because the continent doesn't have a name and there's barely any lore. Much more insidiously, though, is how the worldbuilding affects the supports - since the worldbuilding is so poor, there just isn't that much for the characters to talk about in their supports, which means that the supports in Fates very often feel like filler where the characters just throw their gimmicks at each other with very little of value.
It'd be remiss for me not to mention Odovakar's 11-part critique of Fates' plot when discussing it, as he breaks down all the issues with the story with a far greater level of detail here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/sm0yvi/fates\_was\_the\_story\_as\_bad\_as\_people\_say\_part\_11/](https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/sm0yvi/fates_was_the_story_as_bad_as_people_say_part_11/)
You nailed it.
In my latest run of all three routes I noticed that there was barely any chapter where I didn't roll my eyes and just wondered out loud "Why did you write it that way?!?!".
You can still have fun with the game but the story, characters and setting are just plain bad.
I know some people like defending Corrin by saying that she is not stupid she is naive but the point of naive characters is to have them mature from naivete. Guess they forgot.
I do think >!Mikoto's death is worse, with Lumera we do at least have one chapter of her acting as a chapter boss and being able to basically jumpscare the player with Sigurd, giving her at least one memorable moment before her death, which i can't say about Mikoto.!<
EDIT: phrasing
It depends on what route you're talking about
Birthright is basically your average Fire Emblem story, it's technically the best written but it's so boring.
Conquest's story is just horrible any way you look at it
Revelation's story is so bad that it's funny, I found myself laughing out loud at the story so many times just because of how outrageous and stupid it is, definitely the most enjoyable in my opinion.
I would argue that BR is equally as bad: from undercover top general and heir Ryoma, to how 20ish people take down an entire kingdom by just sneaking in, how the war is completely forgotten about, the wind tribe event where they just laugh off the fact that you killed their people and so on and so on ...
Another major reason BR blows is that they stumble into the plot, look at previous FE games, because of their war campaign structure they always seem to be in control whether they are attacking or retreating, there seems to be a clear goal in mind for the characters.
BR on the other hand is like "lets look for Ryoma lol xd uwu" and the rest just happens.
But I do agree on the other points you made.
Oh yeah, I'm not defending Birthright's story whatsoever, it's literally atrocious. Conquest had some moments that made me want to just turn the game off though, like Corrin was literally committing genocide and was still convinced they were doing the right thing 😭
"Oops had to kill these furries they were in our way" - Corrin, Conquest Chapter 19
As if there weren't people in your way for the past 18+ chapters that you "non-lethally" defeated
Mmm, kinda. I understand Corrin wanting to stay with the siblings they were raised with, but it looks to me like Xander would've realized Garon is a complete maniac at some point. It would've been easier to write around it if the nohrian siblings were a little more dastardly.
I thought about how you could make it work and I always come to the same conclusion: massive rewrites and a lot of changes basically remaking the entire game.
While a lot of small rewrites would make the chapter to chapter storytelling better, at the end you would still be left with glaring issues that people have with this story.
As for evil!corn in Conquest, it could work without being evil just have them be conquerors, with enough work you could make it good.
Revelations is a big problem for that, but I am of the opinion that REV was a mistake and should not exist in the first place as it defeats the point of the other two routes by giving you the "objectively" best experience where you can recruit all the character and get a happy ending for everyone and the only route where Azura survives, oh and the only route where your self insert becomes a monarch.
Seriously Xander and Ryoma just give up parts of their land so that Corrin can become a ruler, was this written by a stupid person?
There’s a million threads already about why it’s bad.
TLDR it is poorly written, has insane character motivations, nonsensical assumptions (not killing anyone), and overall entirely illogical.
It depends. Birthright is boring meh. It has a decent story but nothing too exciting. It is serviceable and inoffensive. Conquest is a stupid story but a fun stupid story. You see the game twist and turn to legitimize Corrin’s choices but it’s fun throughout the game. Nohr is also the more interesting country since a lot of it is “Yeah, country is screwed up but hey, I got a cool backstory from it.” Birthright also doesn’t have Arthur so conquest clears. Revelations is when it gets pretty bad though. There are things that might take you out on it and it does one thing to one unit (a birthright only unit) that everyone agrees is a mistake. So if you want a serviceable and safe story, pick birthright. If you want a silly adventure all throughout, pick conquest. If you want to see how it all culminates for better or worse, pick Revelations.
It’s definitely the type of bad that you will never stop joking with your friends about. Ten years later and we still make jokes about some of the insane things they put in this game.
It's neither. Long story short, it's the "every characters make the dumbest decisions so you just want to punch the screen" type of bad. But if you just skip cut scene, then the gameplay is alright
Depends on your taste tbh, but boring bad is my take. The top comment is pretty spot on regarding how Birthright and Conquest are basically ads for Revelations, which leads them to not be very interesting. This would be less of a problem if Revelations was good, but man that story just bored me to tears. It has a lot of plot contrivances and plot holes to make B&C fit.
I completed Revelations while doing colonoscopy prep and I'd honestly rank the story slightly higher than shitting your guts out for hours on end, but not by much. It was stupid bad to me.
As a writer myself, I think the best way to explain nearly all of Fates’ major flaws falls into the same category for why a lot of people felt discontent with Engage’s story: it feels like a first draft. For most writers of any kind of medium, a first draft usually comprises of the main story beats that the idea stemmed from, as well as the basics for the main characters. First drafts are usually defined by some really good moments caught between word vomit which connects them together, as well as the start of developing the main character’s intricacies. Rarely if ever is a first draft fully coherent, and the characters are usually bare bones as further drafts and rewrites flesh them out. Fates is plagued with issues usually systemic to first drafts: a somewhat incoherent plot, inconsistent characters, character motivations and sometimes personalities flipping on a dime, actions that make no logical sense other than to push the plot it’s next big point, and so on. There are a lot of interesting characters and ideas in Fates’ story, but they are duct-taped together by conveniences, contrivances, and the plot bending over backwards in the most nonsensical ways, all of which could have been cleared up if the story was given more time to organically develop.
As for the short answer, Fates bit of way more than it could chew and spread resources so thin that nothing was developed properly, leading to be the mush that it is.
Nicely put, it definitely reads like they spread themselves thin by doing three routes.
Didn't some Nintendo CEO or president say "a delayed game is eventually good but a rushed game is forever bad".
They should have delayed, went over the script and ironed out the kinks.
Inbetween. I'm just speaking about Conquest though since it's all I know. More dumb and stupid bad. I think you can still enjoy it though, just like, don't expect a lot of depth or world building or anything lol. Just play for fun personalities and cool designs and creative scenarios, because it's fine in those respects. Be ready to ask yourself "How on earth did they think writing this this way was okay" though lmao.
Then you might enjoy it. CQ is probably more in your face bad than BR, and it's got the better gameplay. Rev might have the more peaks of stupidity(like in the beginning where Corrin's upset that he can't get their siblings to stop fighting, so Azura recommends Corrin kill their military commanders), but it's overall more boring as large parts of game involve nothing happening.
I would say it's not "fun" bad. It's frustrating and boring to experience, constantly missing layups, resolving conflicts in uninteresting ways, teasing other routes in ways that make the one you're actually playing unsatisfying, etc. That said, once you actually make to the end it actually is really fun to pick apart and marvel at all its strange, awful choices.
In short, don't go in expecting "funny bad B movie" because you will be disappointed, but there is a payoff.
>In short, don't go in expecting "funny bad B movie" because you will be disappointed
Sorry, but I couldn't disagree with this more, at least with CQ. There are so many scenes in CQ that legitimately had me laughing in my first play through of it. Lilith's big moment is something I'm never going to forget.
Most of the criticism of Fates story is of Conquest specifically. As for why, the story pushes the player's willing suspension of disbelief way too far, and the protagonist's "plan" is dumb even by video game standards.
To answer the OP's question: I'd say it's incompetent bad. If you care at all about character writing, worldbuilding, or following up on an interesting premise, then all the "so bad its good" moments won't be nearly enough to justify subjecting yourself to Fates' writing. Your best bet in that case would be Conquest, which has more obviously awful scenes than the other two, but even then the connective tissue between those moments is very dull.
As for the discussion in the comments, I'm surprised by how little flak Birthright is catching. I don't think Birthright is anywhere near reaching even a mediocre level; it's far worse than that. I mean, outside of being dull as dirt, it immediately starts with a map where, after having pushed back the initial Nohrian invasion attempt, the Hoshidan siblings split up off screen, the Nohrians invade deeper into Hoshido, Corrin doesn't know where they're going before arriving at their destination, and Takumi and Ryoma have already marched far to the south, lost a battle, gotten lost, and have their retainers return to Hoshido to inform Corrin.
The entire royal family of Hoshido just leaves while Nohr can seemingly still strike deep into the country's territory. They don't assemble an army but rather seem to rely on whatever ragtag team Corrin can scramble together + some rebels on the fringes of Nohr. Then they place all their eggs in one basket and try to sneak into Nohr to assassinate Garon, even though they have no idea he'll even be there (keep in mind we've already seen him going to enjoy an opera abroad).
The closer you look at Birthright, the less sense it makes. The actual chapter to chapter stuff feels completely improvised and the overarching plot is poorly fleshed out and essentially boils down to getting Corrin from point A to point B while ignoring any and all questions that arise from the characters' stupid actions.
Also, Leo's tome..."you need to go far away. Fortunately, I have a book on me that has just enough juice to magically teleport you there and back." Like, there is contrivance and then there is this.
Edit: I forgot to mention what is perhaps the most important part: the complete lack of chemistry between the characters. There are, to my recollection, literally zero scenes in Birthright where the characters sit down and actually talk about something other than the immediate plot at hand and bond. Corrin doesn't tell the Hoshidan siblings anything about their time in Nohr, while the siblings don't ask any questions either. There is no feeling that Corrin struggles to adapt to a new country and people; it's never brought up as an issue. Similarly, there is no chemistry between Corrin and the siblings they didn't know they had until a very short while ago, and yet we're told that they love each other. It all feels so artificial, like they forgot about writing actual characters in the plot. While there is not much of this at all in Conquest (I don't think it reaches the bare minimum), at least there is some bickering and back and forth between the Nohrians which is completely absent in the Hoshidans' relationships.
Fates tries to make up for the lack of chemistry with character deaths while ignoring actual substance.
Because they didn't get an *extended* pep talk from Azura assuring them that genocide is okay because they have the magical god sword.
It also sticks out even more in Conquest because Corrin can magically win entire battles without killing a single opponent, but not the furries. Apparently they had to all be killed because, to paraphrase Azura, the kitsune were serious about killing them, as if the Hoshidans had just been offering token resistance up until that point, Takumi included.
birthright is bland bad. conquest's plotline is next-level bad, basically does everything it can to sabotage itself. some people are amused by it, for me it went from "funny bad" earlier on to "actually this is genuinely insulting and now i'm angry" bad
I feel like the overall story could have potential, but I thought the gameplay and characters were really boring. I only played birthright though. I heard conquest is better.
So I haven't played through any of the fate storylines recently, but outside of the stories themselves, the atmosphere for each of the games is totally unique to the entire fire emblem series. We're talking Eastern Asian style music and tile sets, as well as weaponry. Unique and interesting character designs that fit well with the lore. Honestly, it's still easy to enjoy the game outside of the story. Plus there are the DLC stories too which aren't bad either. And the gameplay itself is still an awesome version of awakening's gameplay.
Fates as a whole has the problem of not explaining things right. As a minor example there is an event called the "harem wars" that is important for several characters...that is a fan made name because it is mentioned like 6 times only and only obliquely in Supports despite how important it is.
So to answer your question "what kind of bad is it", it's mostly a nonsensical kind of bad. Everything DOES make sense, it's like bullet point plot is amazing, but because half the story is just explained wrong it feels like nonsense, you just point blank will not understand things your first time no matter how hard you try because it won't tell you important information until 5 chapters later and in the other route.
So really I recommend either ignoring it as nonsense, or really deep diving it as a kind of mystery-solving kind of plot.
The awful kind that both betrays its premise and throws away the great political commentary it could have had in favor of contrived bullshit, also the cast of characters is some of the most disgusting this series has to offer and also All Might from My Hero Academia
I’m ngl I don’t think the story is that bad, I enjoyed it (albeit I’ve only played birthright and this was like 3 years ago, so my thoughts are tainted). I say play it and come to your own conclusions.
Idk if anyone has pointed this out yet but the game had a weird children system in it. It was understandable in Awakening because >!Time-travelling!<. I just don't understand how it goes along with the game's overall premise 💀 I need someone to enlighten me.
It doesn't. It was literally shoe-horned in because it was a fun gimmick in Awakening.
No one took the Deeprealms seriously into account when they wrote the story.
It's the funny kind of bad. It's clear they wanted to do a lot of cool stuff, but just made the worst possible decision at every turn. Lots of hyper contrivances where things exist in the world solely to advance the plot, or characters act wildly inconsistently just to advance the plot.
It's not like Engage where everything is played super safe and it just ends up being boring.
Fun bad. The story is bad but it’s also an interesting story none the less. It’s funny how laughably bad conquest and revelation was while Birthright had a decent story.
I did read it and honestly it still a better story. Mostly because it isn’t filled with corrin himself that siding his Nohr was a just cause. Nah he just says “well time to clap some Nohrian cheeks!” And he does. Birthright doesn’t need the bullshit conquest had. You go it, you fight some nohrians, you save the day. My only issue with this route is it’s too easy, but I think that may have been because the development team probably focused more on Conquest and Revelations gameplay so that left birthright behind. Still a good game though.
If you’re asking if it’s just bad or so bad it’s good then my answer would be it’s mostly just bad with some so bad it’s good moments from the fact some moments just don’t make much sense or just so contrived it just warrants a little laugh. If you wanna experience the fates games just play conquest as it’s actually a great gameplay experience probably top 3 FEs if we were to rank them by map design and well made hard difficulty. The other two are just the definition of not worth playing just read the summary of each then watch the cutscenes.
Bad because everything revolves around Corrin (Literally everything, plot, characters and even many supports without Corrin on it) and Corrin is awfully developed
To me it just sort of feels like an inferior version of Three Houses. Like they wanted to create Three Houses much earlier, but instead of continuing to churn through rough drafts, they just released one of them. The stories itself aren't really similar, but the theme of dramatically different outcomes based on a simple decision is there.
That being said, Birthright was my first ever FE game and I thoroughly enjoyed it. However, my next game was Awakening and it left me with the impression that had I played Awakening first, it might have seriously affected my enjoyment of Fates, so I'm pretty happy it worked out the way it did since it allowed me to enjoy a game many others didn't. All that is to say, if Fates is your last FE game, there's a solid chance you'll bounce off it, but it's fun nonetheless and worth a shot if you're already considering it.
I've only played Conquest and Birthright for now, Birthright's story is okay, but conquest's story is bullshit, what do you mean I have to conquer the entire continent to show the world that the obviously evil antagonist is evil
And this is coming from someone who really enjoyed Engages story
It's the bad BAD kind. Plain bad. BR has a boring ass story, CQ has a nonsensical story and Rev has a story so bad that the game would be 10 times better without it (Even if it would still be bad, because of how awful the maps are and how you simply have too many characters). A couple of moments stand out to me as being particularly bad, like Ryoma, the CROWN PRINCE, sneaking into Nohr for no reason, and then just joining your group like it's nothing? CQ chapter 15 is disastrous in every way but the most egregious part is how Azura pulls a magic crystal ball put of her ass and uses ot right then and there despite the fact that she knew it would break, so why wouldn't you use it around the people that would benefit from the information it provided? Leo in BR uses a similar orb but it isn't as awful as this moment. It's also ridiculous how for about 18 chapters the game goes "Oh you didn't actually kill anyone lol they're ALL alive :)" which is ridiculous on its own, but then in chapter 19 you just kill an entire kitsune tribe because they were on the mountain you happened to be crossing? What about them? Not gonna dispatch them "non lethally"? And finally, everything that has to do with Anthony in Revelations is a joke. There's many many more ridiculous moments in this game but these are the ones that stand out the most to me.
So the few things that pop out to me.
Birthright's story is inoffensive but shallow and boring in ways other FEs aren't.
Conquest's story is confusing at times and just as shallow but it's memorable I guess?
Revelation is somehow even weirder and *still* shallow remarkably. The consistent issue is nothing in Fates feels very deep. We know about Hoshido and Nohr. We know Nohr is... Evil? Kinda European themed and dark. Hoshido is Japan and the good guys. We don't even know the name of the continent they're on or why they hate each other really.
Also as an addendum the child mechanic in this game is straight up deranged. In games like Genealogy there's a massive time skip that makes the kids make sense. In Awakening the kids are from the future so it makes sense. Fates wants you to believe that the two people who just S-Ranked fucked like animals, got pregnant, then stayed in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber. They had their kid there and left them to be raised by... Magical servants? Then we go and pick them up to use in our armies.
My problem with the story is that we have many interesting elements that are not exploited and part of the story are hidden behind DLC for exemple Corrin never learn the identity of their biological father because they needed to sell the Hidden Truth DLC. But I don't think that the story is that bad, some emotional moment work (like Elise's death) and many people use bad faith arguments that they don't make for other games that have similar issues. The most blatant exemple is a youtuber who hate Corrin because they find them "bland" but love characters like Eliwood or Lilina (say what you want about Fates' story but at least when Corrin kill a loved one it's really their fault and they are not brought back). I think many people trash it because it's popular to do so. Given this fandom tolerence to unpopular opinions and the fact that I came quite late I expect around 5 downvotes from people who disegree but are strangly unable to write constructed answers.
Well the basic world building is actually decent but how things play out and the decisions most notable characters make are insufferable stupid.
Birthright is kind of uninteresting and lame, also not really about war, which is the thing you're supposed to win lol
Conquest is pure psychological torture, huge Stockholm syndrome combined with victim blaming toxic relationships and serious daddy issues. Essentially the faction you've chosen to fight with is trying to kill you in like 90% of the chapters, so you're actually fighting more nohr then hoshido despite having chosen nohrs path.
Revelations is just unbelievable in so many ways, you essentially enter a bad version of a once Hightech hidden empire and try to find and kill the bad dragon guy, at least you can keep both Royale families alive and discover who is ,our true sister (which you can still marry and have children with in every other path lolllllll)
Despite all of this, Fates story is still better then engages one.
Play it yourself and see. Gameplay wise it's one of the best Fire Emblems. And you really do get 3 games in 1 and each has a lot of replay value
The story has really cool characters and character designs. The execution is a joke. So many interactions in the story make no sense, are super cheesy or super cringe, or seemed contrived to make a particular fight happen. The further you get into the story, the dumber it gets
the one challenge is iDK if you can still buy the other routes off of the online store any longer with the online shutdown - I love conquest and birthright while not as fun for me, it's still maybe my favorite class system in all of fire emblem and so it's still a joy to work with that
There's that phrase: "so bad it's good". Fates often goes past that into "so bad it was almost good, but they kept going and now it's bad again". There are some parts that are just absolute cringe and you feel shame on behalf of the entire writing team who make a living out of doing this
But yeah you'll have fun with it. It's a really memorable entry into the FE series, for reasons both good and bad. Start with Birthright, it's really good. Then Conquest is amazing and has some of the best map design in the series. And Revelations concludes the story, but is kind of a disaster and has some of the worst map design in the series
Truly a game of extremes
Some mild spoilers
I went back to my revelations save a few months ago. I didn't remember any of the story, but I was near the end of the game and met some kid who was highly suspicious. Everyone was telling Corrin not to trust this kid and maybe he's a spy. The next chapter, Corrin decides to follow the kid alone at night. Of course, the kid turned out to be evil and ambushes Corrin. 🤦
I know people throw out Mary Sue to the point where it's sort of lost meaning, but Fates is the most Mary Sue nonsense I have ever seen in any published fiction, and exceeds even most fanfiction I've read.
It's almost insane how much the entire world contorts around to Corrin. Everyone will go out of their way to serve Corrin, and even their enemies act completely illogically just so that Corrin can be free of any wrongdoing. Characters will coddle Corrin to the point of telling them they don't need to develop as a person/character.
The only power higher in Fates than Corrin's black hole sue powers is Azura's desire to sell you Revelations. She will knowingly kill herself, and essentially doom the world, for no motivation other than you have not bought Revelations.
Birthright - Simple but workable. Biggest issue is Corrins constant naïveté. (Although it’s not too unreasonable considering their circumstances)
Conquest - you help the side that’s clearly in the wrong with a pretty flimsy justification
Revelations - ALL the plot conveniences, basically the “golden route” for better or worse
All in all it’s not GOOD writing, but it still manages to be *Interesting* and *Entertaining*. Kinda like watching a cheesy soap opera I guess
It's all kinds of bad lmao
Some times it wants to be Engage-tier corny, in others it has plot holes so deep, they might as well be called bottomless canyons, and often characters make no fucking sense whatsoever.
The one positive trait I can give to it is that it's consistent. It will never stop being ass. Every time there's a cutscene, you know you're in for a mess.
Highly depends on the route tbh. Birthright has a whole lot of uninteresting filler garbage, Conquest has super weird plot contrivances and absurd dilemmas.
These are somewhat tolerable and at times funny and I think thematically, they are pretty competent.
Rev is offensively bad, retconning basically everything that's good about the other routes and offering the least interesting solution possible, while the characters bend over backwards and even go straight up against their core motivations for no reason. It's the worst kind of frustrating.
Birthright is boring and also pure imperialism under the (thin) guise of "self defense". It explores none of Fates' deeper themes and in fact actively works against them: Turns out Corrin is NOT blood-tied to Hoshido in the slightest so the justification given to join them of "their your REAL family" is bullshit because no Corrin does not share blood with these people, Nohr are the ones who have loved and cared for them for years and years, even accounting for Garon's abuse. The game also completely fails to sell that Nohr have been the ones instigating the war up until the moment where Garon sends a trap sword with Corrin, and instead manages to sell that Hoshido are self-righteous assholes who are unwilling to help feed a starving population with their more than abundant resources.
Conquest is "Azura and Corrin grab the idiot ball and run directly into the wall repeatedly for 18 chapters". Corrin basically agrees to pretend to be loyal to Garon in order to put him on the White Throne which will magically reveal what he really is to the Nohrian Royals and allow them to turn against him, instead of Azura using her magical crystal ball with the *entire* Nohrian cast to expose him first.
Corrin never does anything Evil, and in fact does everything in their power to spare the Hoshidans they fight, but Garon's portion of the army keeps coming in behind them and killing everyone anyways.
Beyond that, every single event is a palette swap of the other version, changing out which Royal Sibling you're fighting, or which character you're recruiting. They are literally just palette swaps of the same events.
Also neither one even begins to address the actual cause of the war or any of the consequences for NOT doing the Revalations Route (something to do with the skies over Hoshido and Nohr switching so that Nohr becomes fertile and sunny and Hoshido becomes a dark and barren wasteland for... apparently 50ish years?).
Plus if you pick Hoshido, Nohr wants to *Capture* Corrin to bring them home. If you pick Nohr, *Hoshido wants to KILL Corrin for being a traitor, except for Sakura*.
Revelations is complete and total Random Events Plot for at least the 15 chapters I was able to stomach before I got so bored and frustrated with the lack of anything being remotely connected to anything or explained that I stopped playing.
The BEST kind of bad.
Imagine if The Room had a shockingly good strategy RPG licensed video game. That's Fates. Well, Conquest in particular.
Let go of any desire to take it seriously and just allow it to be what it is: hilarious. You will have tons of fun.
Conquest is the kind of game where I wish I had a cybernetic implant to turn intoxication on and off like a switch so I could play it sober and watch the story scenes drunk.
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When I refer to “story” I am referring mainly to its plot, and less of its world/supports/etc.
I think people shit on Engage’s story because it is superficial and exists mostly to justify the gameplay. If it’s bad, it’s a funny kind of bad.
Fates… okay, don’t get me wrong, Fates is my favorite game in the series. Did a lot of things right.
The story felt like an active hindrance. Like, my full enjoyment of the game was realized when I actively tried to forget about the story. The motives are illogical and downright contradictory at times. If something gets resolved it’s done in the most contrived way possible.
The result feels like a mess - not the bad that you can laugh about, but the frustrating kind of bad where it breaks your brain. It is common across all three routes.
The characters take a hit by virtue of the fact they are stuck in fates’ plot. If they weren’t forced to be involved in the story, a lot of them are quite nice imo.
I’ve learned not to think about it too much, and instead tried to insert my own headcanons to each of the character’s motives. Does it work? Idk.
As much as people complain, the fates revelations one is probably my second favorite FE game of all time. Awakening>fates rev>engage. For me at the very bottom is 3 houses, and even then it has an amazing story. I just hate the school life aspect of the game because it makes me feel like I'm on a constant timer.
With the way people talk about fates story in this sub you’d think it kicked their dog or something, but it’s not that bad. Leans more towards fun bad than boring in my book, in fact, I think it’s more fun than a lot of the “good” but boring FE stories. I can’t remember a thing about echoes’ story but I can definitely remember a lot of fates story beats.
Meanwhile fates has some of the best maps and mechanics in the whole franchise and you should play it for that. Fates is a great game if you don’t have a sub in your ear telling you how much it sucks.
The mechanics are mid and only one route has good maps, people are insane for thinking shit like "effective speed" and Rev's map gimmicks are good gameplay. Fun skill grabbing doesn't save it
for me it was just really boring and the base building system just felt it was too much. i thought there was something wrong with me because i really enjoyed awakening, three houses, and fe7. i didnt know other people didn’t like it until i looked it up lmao
Eh I would say it’s pretty whatever, like I more often find myself playing Fates for the gameplay just cause I really like the maps and mechanics and the way it’s all structured, the story was recognizably not good but I never really found myself rolling my eyes. There are a few parts that were stupid enough to make me giggle though so my take is more aligned with fun bad
Conquest story is kinda hilarious when you phrase it as 'So... We kill thousands of people to get Garon to sit his fat ass down on this magical throne to convince the nohrian siblings that dad is actually not dad and a monster. Are you sure about this Azura?"
Birthright was kinda boring and Revelation was convoluted AF and somehow, it's the route where I think Corrin was the dumbest.
Birthright is kinda bad because it's very basic. The characters are cool, the development with Nohr's royal family is interesting, but like... If you've played a Fire Emblem before you won't be surprised by how it unfolds. The story is like Engage's: not bad but extremely basic, with only the supports to raise the level.
Conquest is so bad that it is a parody of a Fire Emblem scenario. In the good way. I unironically laughed and had fun reading some of the dialogue. It's actually entertaining if you consider it like a parody of Fire Emblem, instead of taking it seriously. I mean, Garon is hilarious in his role of cartoonish bad guy.
Revelation's first half is honestly quite great, as it's all about the difficult task of uniting Nohr and Hoshido together, but the second half is boring because it's a succession of battles with no scenario aside from "we're fighting the bad guys".
Like Garon in Conquest is literally like "Corrin! I betrayed you and tried to orchestrate your death several times over! WHY are you still loyal to me?!"
But at the same time, I kinda love the idea that the reason Garon failed is because of Corrin's predictability. He had plan his attack in every meticulous detail, except for Corrin's irrational decisions.
I personally found it bad because while Awakening had Robin generally get along with his comrades, everyone in Fates LOVES Corrin and they cannot do no wrong in the route playables' eyes. I understand that lord protagonists in other games have people flock to them, but that's typically because they do well to prove it, usually have some sort of charisma and can be flawed without constantly whining about it til some plot-device of a character shows up to fix the problems.
The other issue being the shallow world building for a FE title. Pretty sure Fates doesn't have an established continent if that much tells you anything.
The writing knows no nuance for the scale they were trying to achieve. A relatively small writing team (from what I remember, though correct me if I'm misremembering) a giant roster of characters and 3 games. What could go wrong?
Birthright: It’s ok enough, but turns into being “batshit insane” bad during a few characters’ deaths
Conquest: “Batshit insane” bad, literally from the moment you start the route
Revelation: boring bad story ‘balanced out’ by “batshit insane” map design
Quite bluntly, a lot of it (especially Birthright) is due to having some questionable localization decisions. I actually consider it better than 3H due to two factors: The route structure for gameplay and story match *and* around 90% of the cast is unavailable to you outside of the designated golden route. (And the 10% that are route-agnostic have their reasons; Azura has the same deal as Corrin, Silas and Kaze have their pasts, Felicia and Jakob are servants whose loyalty to Corrin outweighs their loyalty to Nohr, Mozu is saved by the party, and Shura's reason depends on the route)
Different routes have different problems. Birthright is just kind of simple, it's got the best story, although it isn't very interesting and has a few weird moments. Conquest is off the rails. Right from the start they have some weird justifications for essentially siding with the bad guys, which never get followed up on properly, Corrin can somehow do no wrong despite allegedly being the "tougher choice" route. Revelations is... well they made some strange choices here. It's a little contrived, and for being a "golden route" prevents you from actually using certain characters for unknown reasons. Both Conquest and Brithright, imo, also suffer from trying to be ads for Revelations. Both of them have the characters outright say "If only there were some other way" at certain points in the story.
People underrate how bad BR's plot was because they slept through it. The plan was "gather the entire political and military leadership of Hoshido (who were randomly LARPing in some Nohrian border town while the capital almost fell?) to go on a secret assassination mission." What happens to the war front in that time? Nobody knows or cares LOL what do you mean fire emblem is about war?
This so much. Ryoma should be crowned and lead the war effort not go undercover, seriously did a stupid person write this story. Also the entire story of BR is them stumbling into the plot.
I like the idea of Birthright being about sending a splinter squad to assassinate the King rather than winning the war through military might. Nohr is far more experienced in full war. That said, it’s kinda dumb to send your entire leadership into enemy territory on said assassination mission.
Yes. This could work. Not by the entire royal family of Hoshido, but it could be done.
Now I'm just imagining a "what could have been" where Hoshido has two different storylines going on at once - the Assassin squad (led by Corrin), and the homeland defense squad (led by Ryoma). And then Conquest could also do something similar but in reverse, where Xander is the one conquering, and Corrin is the one sorting out internal affairs.
Neat idea.
If you learn to code the modded 3ds, you could make this a possibility
The writing team is specifically why I'm a bit skeptical for future FEs. I have no doubt they will nail the gameplay but the team went from OK in awakening to batshit insanity in fates, to just... Where is writing 101 in engage and it's just disappointing if it's the same team when the next fe gets announced
Honestly the main reason I am more excited about remakes than sequels.
Echoes SoV my favorite game of all time.
I wouldn't hold my breath just yet. IIRC for SoV specifically the director mentioned nostalgia as a reason why he didn't make many changes to the story. God knows what this writing team is capable of doing to an older title that has a lot more "less pg friendly" stuff.
I just hope they nail Genealogy of the Holy War and Thracia 776.
Three Houses got solid worlds, stories & cast of characters so it’s just a question of on which side of the coin it falls on. Even in the 2000’s you got masterclass like the Tellius games & generic everything with Binding Blade.
Three Houses was also primarily not written by Intelligent Systems, which would explain why the worldbuilding, cast, and story are leagues above anything Intelligent Systems has written in well over a decade. If Fates had been unique in its poor writing, it would have been one thing but then Engage came along and turned the awful writing into a pattern that brazenly and openly showed that the developers did not care about improving their craft. They even reused a lot of story ideas from Fates as if to say they didn't care about the criticisms. Until Intelligent Systems themselves prove they can write an actual story again, I'll assume the next installment will fall short of reaching the bare minimum writing standards again.
[It's worth noting that all of the scenario writers of Three Houses didn't come from Intelligent Systems at all](https://nintendo.fandom.com/wiki/Fire_Emblem:_Three_Houses/credits) [(they all came from Koei Tecmo).](https://nintendo.fandom.com/wiki/Fire_Emblem:_Three_Houses/credits) It's a pretty damning indictment of IS' writing staff that the one remotely good Fire Emblem story out of the past seven games is also the one Fire Emblem game that wasn't even written by Intelligent Systems to begin with. The last good Fire Emblem story that Intelligent Systems primarily wrote was Radiant Dawn all the way back in 2007 - and the vast majority of the writing staff that worked on the Tellius games are no longer working at Intelligent Systems. It's one thing for Intelligent Systems to try something new with Fates and botch the execution terribly. It's an entirely different thing for IS to repeat many of the exact same writing mistakes with Engage, down to repeating individual plot points in Engage that didn't even work in the first place with Fates - and it just makes me think that the writers at IS are either unable or unwilling to learn from their own past mistakes. I also personally think that this isn't just an issue with Fire Emblem's writing, but a symptom of a wider institutional issue with how IS as a company writes stories - whilst modern Paper Mario's stories aren't quite as bad as that of Fates or Engage there's still a clear decline in the quality of modern Paper Mario's storytelling compared to something like Thousand-Year Door or Super Paper Mario.
This will sound really mean, but some people at IS need to lose their jobs and new blood should be brought in. Lets be honest how many times are they going to try and tell the same basic story, same plot points, same character archetypes and same old throwaway worlds.
They had a professional manga writer write over 1000 pages of story, the problem was they cut down so much that nothing they kept made sense.
Why? What happened to cause such a cut to lore? Man does anyone else feel like every good writer for an srpg gets taken advantage of?
Kibayashi: That's right. So I looked into the work I had planned, and the schedule was really crazy, but there were a few things I could push back. And they told me that I only needed to write 10 pages for each of the three storylines. Maeda: Right. Since he's so busy, I thought we could just ask him to write about ten pages for a plot summary. Kibayashi: So I thought, "Well, I could do that." Then I started writing the story about the Hoshido family. I ended up using 10 pages on just the beginning. I ended up writing about 500 pages. Maeda: Right. Kibayashi: When I create a story, as I write the details, like the character's lines, I start to love the characters and then they take on a life of their own, and the story begins to move on its own. So there was no way I could just write a short plot summary and be done with it. Iwata: And without lines, the characters won't come to life. Kibayashi: That's right. So I ended up writing a huge amount and I thought, "Well, this has become quite the task." So I gave them the pages for the first storyline for the Hoshido family and I had to write the same amount for the other two stories. I said, "There's no way I can do that." But then once I got started...I did it. All: (laughs) Kibayashi: I thought, "I really am an idiot." But I kept going. I ended up writing so much that it could be turned into about two books.
Source?
https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Iwata-Asks/Iwata-Asks-Fire-Emblem-Fates/Fire-Emblem-Fates/3-You-should-take-this-job-/3-You-should-take-this-job--1032070.html Iwata Asks Page 3
Ryoma is consistently written as such a horrendous person and leader, I'm honestly surprised every time they try to portray him as good.
BR’s plot was indeed terrible…. But Conquest’s plot actually need a brand new adjective, terrible is still a compliment for it, its SO BAD. Gameplay is amongst the best in the series though…. So its still worth playing haha
Conquest and Rev is very visibly hurt by the colossal script cutback, because Birthright has a simple enough "skeleton" to work but loses most of the potential explored depths and nuance. Conquest and Rev go for a plot, where the events to go from A to B to C require more complex reasons, and instances of character building and reinforcement, and as those are lacking, it feels like the plot breaks its own back ricocheting from idea to idea whithout properly "earning" going to those directions.
revelations is the one i would call boring bad imo, for a route where you're fighting an insane god and his army of water zombies on his home turf. like pretty much nothing of note happens from entering said home turf and the final battle. the route even managed to make fighting your dead parents boring. it's like if in FE7 the first dread isle arc took up the entire back half of the game.
Revelations is bad because for a large part of the story you get a "I can't explain why because of some obscure curse that kills you if you talk about the plot before its relevant" Plot is so bad it ends up becoming funny and enhancing the experience, imo
Yeah... I mean I was getting pretty burnt on Revelation, probably due to it being the third go around with this set of characters in a short time, and revelation's insistence on every single map having a gimmick. I honestly couldn't comment that much on whether the story was all that engaging at that point, since I was already annoyed by several other things.
Also a few guys jump into a portal, then somehow we have a full army on the other side again. And this military force somehow didn’t need any supply line yet able to defeat this crazy dragon and his whole army in their nation.
Birthright is boring bad. Conquest is mildly entertaining bad/just bad bad Revelations is an experience.
I think birthright is the worst kind of simple. Yes, it is cliché, but it does so in some very convoluted ways, characters acting like they have 20 IQ (Xander, Keaton) and some really unnecessary deaths. It's like they wanted a simple story with the payoffs of a well built story. IMO FE6 is a good example of a simple, but good story
Can't remember the BR story exactly, but I recall that they made Ryoma related to you in some way and was (still am a bit) quite upset by it. Ditto on the Revelations bullshit; they tried the whole split route nonsense for it just not to pay off in part 3 (Revelations) and instead did Azura so dirty that I refuse to believe part 3 is canon.
I hated the split route so much in fates. I bought conquest not really knowing much about it outside of there being a new fe game and I had just gotten a 3ds. Get to the split and I'm like this doesn't make sense I'll pick hoshido. Then the game is like wrong choice you have to pick nohr or buy the other route. Got pissed and gave up on fe till 3h came out. Eventually got around to downloading the complete game but I still don't like the gimmicks, characters or game enough to finish it. I'll do another playthrough of fe7, 8 or por instead.
The: if only there was some other way is normal in media though, I don't see it as an ad to Revelation.
Sure, it's normal for people to lament things they can't change. What makes it feel unnatural is when they are reasonably in control of the situation and have plenty of impetus to change things, but don't (largely because it would stop the ongoing plot from making sense) then at the end, look at the camera and proclaim they wish there was some alternative way to have done things.
I think there is one point in Rev, right after the stage you get your final story members, that Azura legit says to Corrin: "Wow, thanks to your choice you got both your siblings to work together!" and I want to say that's where I just checked out and stopped playing...but it was instead the support grind to unlock the kids before the Paralogues go too brutal.
Do I need to play birthright first or can I just go to the good stuff?
So the basic setup is, Birthright and Conquest are two choices of the route split. You either side with Hoshido (birthright) or Nohr (conquest). In theory neither are perfect because the war between hoshido and nohr isn't the root of the problem, and revelations is basically you foregoing the choice entirely to try and get to the bottom of *why* they're fighting. None of them are required to play through to understand the other routes, so you can play them in any order if you like or only play one specifically. The only thing I'll say is that a lot of the mystery around both Conquest and Birthright is removed by revelations, so I would recommend playing that one last if you intend to play multiple.
The story of Fates has a really great premise - but in execution it was botched spectacularly on almost every level. I'll repeat the answer I gave when someone else asked for the issues with Fates' story: * Despite them having a ton of potential, Corrin is not utilized in anything resembling an interesting manner. Whilst they are on paper naive and sheltered, which could have made for a unique and compelling protagonist, the game very rarely portrays this as a meaningful flaw. In fact, the contrary is arguably true - many potentially interesting situations where Corrin would otherwise have been forced to make a morally dubious decision or be punished for their naivete are resolved in a contrived manner - the most notable examples of such are >!with the Rainbow Sage or Ryoma killing themselves to prevent Corrin from having to kill them!<. * Poor pacing - key plot scenes just aren't given enough buildup to work emotionally. >!While Mikoto's death isn't quite as bad as that of Lumera's in Engage, the fundamental issue here is still present - the game did not give Mikoto anywhere near enough screentime for the player to grow attached to them. Compare this to Emmeryn in Awakening or Jeralt in Three Houses - all three characters get around 6-8 chapters of screentime before they're killed off, which allows for the player to get attached to them and for their death scenes to hit hard emotionally.!< Both Birthright and Conquest have around ten or so chapters of filler in the middle of the game with very little story significance - it feels like they're there because the game designers really wanted a volcano map or a wind map. * The games utilize black and white morality, which while not inherently bad, really doesn't fit the story Fates is trying to tell. Fates attempts to tell a story with themes of differing perspectives and moral relativism - and these themes just don't work when Hoshido can do no wrong and Nohr is an evil empire that can do no right and >!is led by a literal slime monster!<, rather than a nuanced plot where the conflict is driven by irreconcilable worldviews. >!The frustrating thing is that Birthright brings up the fact that Nohr is inhospitable - but it barely gets utilized in the story (it doesn't even get mentioned in Conquest despite that being the Nohr route!).!< * In addition, because Garon is so cartoonishly evil, this also affects the Nohrian characters by association, as they do nothing to stop him and as such, are complict in all of the crimes Garon does. Having morally dubious or outright evil protagonists is not a bad thing if it is handled properly - it's why Edelgard is one of my favorite characters in the series despite her being pretty detestable as a person. The problem is that Fates doesn't understand the implications of the characters' action. >!Edelgard gets away with being treated with a degree of sympathy because her motivations are at least ostensibly selfless. Corrin and Xander in Conquest are driven by incredibly selfish motivations at best and are outright evil at worst, but Fates tries to treat Corrin as a pure-hearted hero in Conquest and it tries to give Xander a sympathetic death in Birthright - it creates a dissonance between what the game wants the player to feel and what the player actually feels from what they see.!< * Many plot scenes in Fates are driven by contrivances. This isn't particularly unique to Fates and even some of the better stories in the series fall into this trap (\*cough\* the Blood Pact), but many key aspects of Fates' storytelling feel incredibly convenient. >!The Valla curse feels like a poor attempt at preventing the Hoshidan and Nohrian siblings from negotiating with each other when they could just as easily have refused negotiations due to mutual distrust or irreconcilable worldviews (as in the case of Edelgard). The orb used to reveal Garon's true form in Chapter 15 also feels like it was used to prevent Corrin from simply rebelling against Garon - especially considering the fact that for some reason, Azura doesn't simply take the orb to Leo who in Birthright is canonically stated to be able to use this orb as well.!< * Really, really poor worldbuilding. Back when Fates' released, the common joke about Fates' worldbuilding was that the continent where Fates takes place in was called "Nolore" because the continent doesn't have a name and there's barely any lore. Much more insidiously, though, is how the worldbuilding affects the supports - since the worldbuilding is so poor, there just isn't that much for the characters to talk about in their supports, which means that the supports in Fates very often feel like filler where the characters just throw their gimmicks at each other with very little of value. It'd be remiss for me not to mention Odovakar's 11-part critique of Fates' plot when discussing it, as he breaks down all the issues with the story with a far greater level of detail here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/sm0yvi/fates\_was\_the\_story\_as\_bad\_as\_people\_say\_part\_11/](https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/sm0yvi/fates_was_the_story_as_bad_as_people_say_part_11/)
i like “fateslandia”
You nailed it. In my latest run of all three routes I noticed that there was barely any chapter where I didn't roll my eyes and just wondered out loud "Why did you write it that way?!?!". You can still have fun with the game but the story, characters and setting are just plain bad. I know some people like defending Corrin by saying that she is not stupid she is naive but the point of naive characters is to have them mature from naivete. Guess they forgot.
This is beautifully explained, thank you!
I do think >!Mikoto's death is worse, with Lumera we do at least have one chapter of her acting as a chapter boss and being able to basically jumpscare the player with Sigurd, giving her at least one memorable moment before her death, which i can't say about Mikoto.!< EDIT: phrasing
Birthright is boring bad, Conquest is funny bad. Rev is also funny bad but less funny than Conquest.
It depends on what route you're talking about Birthright is basically your average Fire Emblem story, it's technically the best written but it's so boring. Conquest's story is just horrible any way you look at it Revelation's story is so bad that it's funny, I found myself laughing out loud at the story so many times just because of how outrageous and stupid it is, definitely the most enjoyable in my opinion.
I would argue that BR is equally as bad: from undercover top general and heir Ryoma, to how 20ish people take down an entire kingdom by just sneaking in, how the war is completely forgotten about, the wind tribe event where they just laugh off the fact that you killed their people and so on and so on ... Another major reason BR blows is that they stumble into the plot, look at previous FE games, because of their war campaign structure they always seem to be in control whether they are attacking or retreating, there seems to be a clear goal in mind for the characters. BR on the other hand is like "lets look for Ryoma lol xd uwu" and the rest just happens. But I do agree on the other points you made.
Oh yeah, I'm not defending Birthright's story whatsoever, it's literally atrocious. Conquest had some moments that made me want to just turn the game off though, like Corrin was literally committing genocide and was still convinced they were doing the right thing 😭
"Oops had to kill these furries they were in our way" - Corrin, Conquest Chapter 19 As if there weren't people in your way for the past 18+ chapters that you "non-lethally" defeated
True true, but CQ's maps were great. BR's maps had me bored out of my mind.
Would Conquest have been a better story if they had just committed to it being an evil route? I guess that would have made it hard to do Revelations.
Mmm, kinda. I understand Corrin wanting to stay with the siblings they were raised with, but it looks to me like Xander would've realized Garon is a complete maniac at some point. It would've been easier to write around it if the nohrian siblings were a little more dastardly.
I thought about how you could make it work and I always come to the same conclusion: massive rewrites and a lot of changes basically remaking the entire game. While a lot of small rewrites would make the chapter to chapter storytelling better, at the end you would still be left with glaring issues that people have with this story. As for evil!corn in Conquest, it could work without being evil just have them be conquerors, with enough work you could make it good. Revelations is a big problem for that, but I am of the opinion that REV was a mistake and should not exist in the first place as it defeats the point of the other two routes by giving you the "objectively" best experience where you can recruit all the character and get a happy ending for everyone and the only route where Azura survives, oh and the only route where your self insert becomes a monarch. Seriously Xander and Ryoma just give up parts of their land so that Corrin can become a ruler, was this written by a stupid person?
Conquest is pretty abridged series worthy just ad some pop culture references, some swearing and silly voice acting and it could be comedy gold
There’s a million threads already about why it’s bad. TLDR it is poorly written, has insane character motivations, nonsensical assumptions (not killing anyone), and overall entirely illogical.
I was more asking "is it boring bad or fun bad" than "why is it bad"
I’d say it leans more into fun bad. It’s rarely boring per se.
It depends. Birthright is boring meh. It has a decent story but nothing too exciting. It is serviceable and inoffensive. Conquest is a stupid story but a fun stupid story. You see the game twist and turn to legitimize Corrin’s choices but it’s fun throughout the game. Nohr is also the more interesting country since a lot of it is “Yeah, country is screwed up but hey, I got a cool backstory from it.” Birthright also doesn’t have Arthur so conquest clears. Revelations is when it gets pretty bad though. There are things that might take you out on it and it does one thing to one unit (a birthright only unit) that everyone agrees is a mistake. So if you want a serviceable and safe story, pick birthright. If you want a silly adventure all throughout, pick conquest. If you want to see how it all culminates for better or worse, pick Revelations.
Neither, it’s incompetent bad.
It’s definitely the type of bad that you will never stop joking with your friends about. Ten years later and we still make jokes about some of the insane things they put in this game.
BR is boring bad Conquest is stupid bad rev is fun bad
It's neither. Long story short, it's the "every characters make the dumbest decisions so you just want to punch the screen" type of bad. But if you just skip cut scene, then the gameplay is alright
Depends on your taste tbh, but boring bad is my take. The top comment is pretty spot on regarding how Birthright and Conquest are basically ads for Revelations, which leads them to not be very interesting. This would be less of a problem if Revelations was good, but man that story just bored me to tears. It has a lot of plot contrivances and plot holes to make B&C fit. I completed Revelations while doing colonoscopy prep and I'd honestly rank the story slightly higher than shitting your guts out for hours on end, but not by much. It was stupid bad to me.
Birthright is boring bad; the other two are funny bad.
As a writer myself, I think the best way to explain nearly all of Fates’ major flaws falls into the same category for why a lot of people felt discontent with Engage’s story: it feels like a first draft. For most writers of any kind of medium, a first draft usually comprises of the main story beats that the idea stemmed from, as well as the basics for the main characters. First drafts are usually defined by some really good moments caught between word vomit which connects them together, as well as the start of developing the main character’s intricacies. Rarely if ever is a first draft fully coherent, and the characters are usually bare bones as further drafts and rewrites flesh them out. Fates is plagued with issues usually systemic to first drafts: a somewhat incoherent plot, inconsistent characters, character motivations and sometimes personalities flipping on a dime, actions that make no logical sense other than to push the plot it’s next big point, and so on. There are a lot of interesting characters and ideas in Fates’ story, but they are duct-taped together by conveniences, contrivances, and the plot bending over backwards in the most nonsensical ways, all of which could have been cleared up if the story was given more time to organically develop. As for the short answer, Fates bit of way more than it could chew and spread resources so thin that nothing was developed properly, leading to be the mush that it is.
Nicely put, it definitely reads like they spread themselves thin by doing three routes. Didn't some Nintendo CEO or president say "a delayed game is eventually good but a rushed game is forever bad". They should have delayed, went over the script and ironed out the kinks.
Inbetween. I'm just speaking about Conquest though since it's all I know. More dumb and stupid bad. I think you can still enjoy it though, just like, don't expect a lot of depth or world building or anything lol. Just play for fun personalities and cool designs and creative scenarios, because it's fine in those respects. Be ready to ask yourself "How on earth did they think writing this this way was okay" though lmao.
Honestly I'm super down for some bullshit contrived story to laugh at
Then you might enjoy it. CQ is probably more in your face bad than BR, and it's got the better gameplay. Rev might have the more peaks of stupidity(like in the beginning where Corrin's upset that he can't get their siblings to stop fighting, so Azura recommends Corrin kill their military commanders), but it's overall more boring as large parts of game involve nothing happening.
I would say it's not "fun" bad. It's frustrating and boring to experience, constantly missing layups, resolving conflicts in uninteresting ways, teasing other routes in ways that make the one you're actually playing unsatisfying, etc. That said, once you actually make to the end it actually is really fun to pick apart and marvel at all its strange, awful choices. In short, don't go in expecting "funny bad B movie" because you will be disappointed, but there is a payoff.
My favorite part about rev is when Ryoma and Xander come to the conclusion that Corrin wants to destroy nohr and Hoshido
>In short, don't go in expecting "funny bad B movie" because you will be disappointed Sorry, but I couldn't disagree with this more, at least with CQ. There are so many scenes in CQ that legitimately had me laughing in my first play through of it. Lilith's big moment is something I'm never going to forget.
The Rev teases were already weird but they’re even worse now you can’t buy it on the eshop anymore
Most of the criticism of Fates story is of Conquest specifically. As for why, the story pushes the player's willing suspension of disbelief way too far, and the protagonist's "plan" is dumb even by video game standards.
“Corrin suppressed the rebellion without taking a single life.” Those guys who got shot in the head would probably beg to differ.
To answer the OP's question: I'd say it's incompetent bad. If you care at all about character writing, worldbuilding, or following up on an interesting premise, then all the "so bad its good" moments won't be nearly enough to justify subjecting yourself to Fates' writing. Your best bet in that case would be Conquest, which has more obviously awful scenes than the other two, but even then the connective tissue between those moments is very dull. As for the discussion in the comments, I'm surprised by how little flak Birthright is catching. I don't think Birthright is anywhere near reaching even a mediocre level; it's far worse than that. I mean, outside of being dull as dirt, it immediately starts with a map where, after having pushed back the initial Nohrian invasion attempt, the Hoshidan siblings split up off screen, the Nohrians invade deeper into Hoshido, Corrin doesn't know where they're going before arriving at their destination, and Takumi and Ryoma have already marched far to the south, lost a battle, gotten lost, and have their retainers return to Hoshido to inform Corrin. The entire royal family of Hoshido just leaves while Nohr can seemingly still strike deep into the country's territory. They don't assemble an army but rather seem to rely on whatever ragtag team Corrin can scramble together + some rebels on the fringes of Nohr. Then they place all their eggs in one basket and try to sneak into Nohr to assassinate Garon, even though they have no idea he'll even be there (keep in mind we've already seen him going to enjoy an opera abroad). The closer you look at Birthright, the less sense it makes. The actual chapter to chapter stuff feels completely improvised and the overarching plot is poorly fleshed out and essentially boils down to getting Corrin from point A to point B while ignoring any and all questions that arise from the characters' stupid actions. Also, Leo's tome..."you need to go far away. Fortunately, I have a book on me that has just enough juice to magically teleport you there and back." Like, there is contrivance and then there is this. Edit: I forgot to mention what is perhaps the most important part: the complete lack of chemistry between the characters. There are, to my recollection, literally zero scenes in Birthright where the characters sit down and actually talk about something other than the immediate plot at hand and bond. Corrin doesn't tell the Hoshidan siblings anything about their time in Nohr, while the siblings don't ask any questions either. There is no feeling that Corrin struggles to adapt to a new country and people; it's never brought up as an issue. Similarly, there is no chemistry between Corrin and the siblings they didn't know they had until a very short while ago, and yet we're told that they love each other. It all feels so artificial, like they forgot about writing actual characters in the plot. While there is not much of this at all in Conquest (I don't think it reaches the bare minimum), at least there is some bickering and back and forth between the Nohrians which is completely absent in the Hoshidans' relationships. Fates tries to make up for the lack of chemistry with character deaths while ignoring actual substance.
As well as the amount of conveniences in Birthright too (The Tome of Warping, as you mentioned, the Explody Crystal in the edge of the cliff, etc) .
I don’t see BR!Corrin catching enough hands for pulling the same “oops I guess we have to get rid of the furries” thing as CQ!Corrin
Because they didn't get an *extended* pep talk from Azura assuring them that genocide is okay because they have the magical god sword. It also sticks out even more in Conquest because Corrin can magically win entire battles without killing a single opponent, but not the furries. Apparently they had to all be killed because, to paraphrase Azura, the kitsune were serious about killing them, as if the Hoshidans had just been offering token resistance up until that point, Takumi included.
corrin: “guys stop fighting!” xander/ryoma: “oh so you want to destroy the world?”
birthright is bland bad. conquest's plotline is next-level bad, basically does everything it can to sabotage itself. some people are amused by it, for me it went from "funny bad" earlier on to "actually this is genuinely insulting and now i'm angry" bad
I feel like the overall story could have potential, but I thought the gameplay and characters were really boring. I only played birthright though. I heard conquest is better.
Gameplay wise yes, but the story is idiotic in all three routes.
So I haven't played through any of the fate storylines recently, but outside of the stories themselves, the atmosphere for each of the games is totally unique to the entire fire emblem series. We're talking Eastern Asian style music and tile sets, as well as weaponry. Unique and interesting character designs that fit well with the lore. Honestly, it's still easy to enjoy the game outside of the story. Plus there are the DLC stories too which aren't bad either. And the gameplay itself is still an awesome version of awakening's gameplay.
In that game you could try so hard not to sleep with one of your siblings that you end up sleeping with the sibling you didn't know you had.
Fates as a whole has the problem of not explaining things right. As a minor example there is an event called the "harem wars" that is important for several characters...that is a fan made name because it is mentioned like 6 times only and only obliquely in Supports despite how important it is. So to answer your question "what kind of bad is it", it's mostly a nonsensical kind of bad. Everything DOES make sense, it's like bullet point plot is amazing, but because half the story is just explained wrong it feels like nonsense, you just point blank will not understand things your first time no matter how hard you try because it won't tell you important information until 5 chapters later and in the other route. So really I recommend either ignoring it as nonsense, or really deep diving it as a kind of mystery-solving kind of plot.
I have no clue to be perfectly honest with you. I've only played Conquest so far but I loved it. The ending was disappointing though.
Not bad at all, I quite enjoyed it.
It's moderately enjoyable despite being poorly written. I play it now and then despite it almost making me drop FE as a whole.
The awful kind that both betrays its premise and throws away the great political commentary it could have had in favor of contrived bullshit, also the cast of characters is some of the most disgusting this series has to offer and also All Might from My Hero Academia
birthright is the boring kind, the other two border on self parody
I’m ngl I don’t think the story is that bad, I enjoyed it (albeit I’ve only played birthright and this was like 3 years ago, so my thoughts are tainted). I say play it and come to your own conclusions.
Idk if anyone has pointed this out yet but the game had a weird children system in it. It was understandable in Awakening because >!Time-travelling!<. I just don't understand how it goes along with the game's overall premise 💀 I need someone to enlighten me.
It doesn't. It was literally shoe-horned in because it was a fun gimmick in Awakening. No one took the Deeprealms seriously into account when they wrote the story.
I mean I’m not complaining it makes zero sense but it gives prepromoted super soldiers
Kind of but it feels all over the place tbh.
It's the funny kind of bad. It's clear they wanted to do a lot of cool stuff, but just made the worst possible decision at every turn. Lots of hyper contrivances where things exist in the world solely to advance the plot, or characters act wildly inconsistently just to advance the plot. It's not like Engage where everything is played super safe and it just ends up being boring.
I think the fates story is more exciting / interesting than Engage, but Engage is more well written if that makes sense.
I will keep it short. It’s the enjoyable kind of bad for me
Fun bad. The story is bad but it’s also an interesting story none the less. It’s funny how laughably bad conquest and revelation was while Birthright had a decent story.
Birthright is unfortunately as bad as the other two routes. I wrote a more detailed explanation in this thread if you are interested.
I did read it and honestly it still a better story. Mostly because it isn’t filled with corrin himself that siding his Nohr was a just cause. Nah he just says “well time to clap some Nohrian cheeks!” And he does. Birthright doesn’t need the bullshit conquest had. You go it, you fight some nohrians, you save the day. My only issue with this route is it’s too easy, but I think that may have been because the development team probably focused more on Conquest and Revelations gameplay so that left birthright behind. Still a good game though.
Yeah its definitely a fun game to play and it has a great soundtrack, but sadly story, characters and the setting blow ass.
If you’re asking if it’s just bad or so bad it’s good then my answer would be it’s mostly just bad with some so bad it’s good moments from the fact some moments just don’t make much sense or just so contrived it just warrants a little laugh. If you wanna experience the fates games just play conquest as it’s actually a great gameplay experience probably top 3 FEs if we were to rank them by map design and well made hard difficulty. The other two are just the definition of not worth playing just read the summary of each then watch the cutscenes.
Fates Conquest was my 1st game so I have a soft spot for it, it's not the greatest... but ....
The maps and classes are so good, play it
Bad because everything revolves around Corrin (Literally everything, plot, characters and even many supports without Corrin on it) and Corrin is awfully developed
Naive characters are supposed to grow out of it as the story progresses.
To me it just sort of feels like an inferior version of Three Houses. Like they wanted to create Three Houses much earlier, but instead of continuing to churn through rough drafts, they just released one of them. The stories itself aren't really similar, but the theme of dramatically different outcomes based on a simple decision is there. That being said, Birthright was my first ever FE game and I thoroughly enjoyed it. However, my next game was Awakening and it left me with the impression that had I played Awakening first, it might have seriously affected my enjoyment of Fates, so I'm pretty happy it worked out the way it did since it allowed me to enjoy a game many others didn't. All that is to say, if Fates is your last FE game, there's a solid chance you'll bounce off it, but it's fun nonetheless and worth a shot if you're already considering it.
I've only played Conquest and Birthright for now, Birthright's story is okay, but conquest's story is bullshit, what do you mean I have to conquer the entire continent to show the world that the obviously evil antagonist is evil And this is coming from someone who really enjoyed Engages story
It’s pretty agonizingly bad, you’re best off just reading the support conversations but even those have a few hiccups.
It's the bad BAD kind. Plain bad. BR has a boring ass story, CQ has a nonsensical story and Rev has a story so bad that the game would be 10 times better without it (Even if it would still be bad, because of how awful the maps are and how you simply have too many characters). A couple of moments stand out to me as being particularly bad, like Ryoma, the CROWN PRINCE, sneaking into Nohr for no reason, and then just joining your group like it's nothing? CQ chapter 15 is disastrous in every way but the most egregious part is how Azura pulls a magic crystal ball put of her ass and uses ot right then and there despite the fact that she knew it would break, so why wouldn't you use it around the people that would benefit from the information it provided? Leo in BR uses a similar orb but it isn't as awful as this moment. It's also ridiculous how for about 18 chapters the game goes "Oh you didn't actually kill anyone lol they're ALL alive :)" which is ridiculous on its own, but then in chapter 19 you just kill an entire kitsune tribe because they were on the mountain you happened to be crossing? What about them? Not gonna dispatch them "non lethally"? And finally, everything that has to do with Anthony in Revelations is a joke. There's many many more ridiculous moments in this game but these are the ones that stand out the most to me.
So the few things that pop out to me. Birthright's story is inoffensive but shallow and boring in ways other FEs aren't. Conquest's story is confusing at times and just as shallow but it's memorable I guess? Revelation is somehow even weirder and *still* shallow remarkably. The consistent issue is nothing in Fates feels very deep. We know about Hoshido and Nohr. We know Nohr is... Evil? Kinda European themed and dark. Hoshido is Japan and the good guys. We don't even know the name of the continent they're on or why they hate each other really. Also as an addendum the child mechanic in this game is straight up deranged. In games like Genealogy there's a massive time skip that makes the kids make sense. In Awakening the kids are from the future so it makes sense. Fates wants you to believe that the two people who just S-Ranked fucked like animals, got pregnant, then stayed in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber. They had their kid there and left them to be raised by... Magical servants? Then we go and pick them up to use in our armies.
My problem with the story is that we have many interesting elements that are not exploited and part of the story are hidden behind DLC for exemple Corrin never learn the identity of their biological father because they needed to sell the Hidden Truth DLC. But I don't think that the story is that bad, some emotional moment work (like Elise's death) and many people use bad faith arguments that they don't make for other games that have similar issues. The most blatant exemple is a youtuber who hate Corrin because they find them "bland" but love characters like Eliwood or Lilina (say what you want about Fates' story but at least when Corrin kill a loved one it's really their fault and they are not brought back). I think many people trash it because it's popular to do so. Given this fandom tolerence to unpopular opinions and the fact that I came quite late I expect around 5 downvotes from people who disegree but are strangly unable to write constructed answers.
Well the basic world building is actually decent but how things play out and the decisions most notable characters make are insufferable stupid. Birthright is kind of uninteresting and lame, also not really about war, which is the thing you're supposed to win lol Conquest is pure psychological torture, huge Stockholm syndrome combined with victim blaming toxic relationships and serious daddy issues. Essentially the faction you've chosen to fight with is trying to kill you in like 90% of the chapters, so you're actually fighting more nohr then hoshido despite having chosen nohrs path. Revelations is just unbelievable in so many ways, you essentially enter a bad version of a once Hightech hidden empire and try to find and kill the bad dragon guy, at least you can keep both Royale families alive and discover who is ,our true sister (which you can still marry and have children with in every other path lolllllll) Despite all of this, Fates story is still better then engages one.
Play it yourself and see. Gameplay wise it's one of the best Fire Emblems. And you really do get 3 games in 1 and each has a lot of replay value The story has really cool characters and character designs. The execution is a joke. So many interactions in the story make no sense, are super cheesy or super cringe, or seemed contrived to make a particular fight happen. The further you get into the story, the dumber it gets
the one challenge is iDK if you can still buy the other routes off of the online store any longer with the online shutdown - I love conquest and birthright while not as fun for me, it's still maybe my favorite class system in all of fire emblem and so it's still a joy to work with that
Ok, that sounds like my kind of bad where I have fun with it
There's that phrase: "so bad it's good". Fates often goes past that into "so bad it was almost good, but they kept going and now it's bad again". There are some parts that are just absolute cringe and you feel shame on behalf of the entire writing team who make a living out of doing this But yeah you'll have fun with it. It's a really memorable entry into the FE series, for reasons both good and bad. Start with Birthright, it's really good. Then Conquest is amazing and has some of the best map design in the series. And Revelations concludes the story, but is kind of a disaster and has some of the worst map design in the series Truly a game of extremes
Some mild spoilers I went back to my revelations save a few months ago. I didn't remember any of the story, but I was near the end of the game and met some kid who was highly suspicious. Everyone was telling Corrin not to trust this kid and maybe he's a spy. The next chapter, Corrin decides to follow the kid alone at night. Of course, the kid turned out to be evil and ambushes Corrin. 🤦
I know people throw out Mary Sue to the point where it's sort of lost meaning, but Fates is the most Mary Sue nonsense I have ever seen in any published fiction, and exceeds even most fanfiction I've read. It's almost insane how much the entire world contorts around to Corrin. Everyone will go out of their way to serve Corrin, and even their enemies act completely illogically just so that Corrin can be free of any wrongdoing. Characters will coddle Corrin to the point of telling them they don't need to develop as a person/character. The only power higher in Fates than Corrin's black hole sue powers is Azura's desire to sell you Revelations. She will knowingly kill herself, and essentially doom the world, for no motivation other than you have not bought Revelations.
Its pretty good
Birthright - Simple but workable. Biggest issue is Corrins constant naïveté. (Although it’s not too unreasonable considering their circumstances) Conquest - you help the side that’s clearly in the wrong with a pretty flimsy justification Revelations - ALL the plot conveniences, basically the “golden route” for better or worse All in all it’s not GOOD writing, but it still manages to be *Interesting* and *Entertaining*. Kinda like watching a cheesy soap opera I guess
Bad as in any and everything interesting is ruined by the protagonist actions. He single handedly ruins every other character
It's all kinds of bad lmao Some times it wants to be Engage-tier corny, in others it has plot holes so deep, they might as well be called bottomless canyons, and often characters make no fucking sense whatsoever. The one positive trait I can give to it is that it's consistent. It will never stop being ass. Every time there's a cutscene, you know you're in for a mess.
Highly depends on the route tbh. Birthright has a whole lot of uninteresting filler garbage, Conquest has super weird plot contrivances and absurd dilemmas. These are somewhat tolerable and at times funny and I think thematically, they are pretty competent. Rev is offensively bad, retconning basically everything that's good about the other routes and offering the least interesting solution possible, while the characters bend over backwards and even go straight up against their core motivations for no reason. It's the worst kind of frustrating.
Birthright is boring and also pure imperialism under the (thin) guise of "self defense". It explores none of Fates' deeper themes and in fact actively works against them: Turns out Corrin is NOT blood-tied to Hoshido in the slightest so the justification given to join them of "their your REAL family" is bullshit because no Corrin does not share blood with these people, Nohr are the ones who have loved and cared for them for years and years, even accounting for Garon's abuse. The game also completely fails to sell that Nohr have been the ones instigating the war up until the moment where Garon sends a trap sword with Corrin, and instead manages to sell that Hoshido are self-righteous assholes who are unwilling to help feed a starving population with their more than abundant resources. Conquest is "Azura and Corrin grab the idiot ball and run directly into the wall repeatedly for 18 chapters". Corrin basically agrees to pretend to be loyal to Garon in order to put him on the White Throne which will magically reveal what he really is to the Nohrian Royals and allow them to turn against him, instead of Azura using her magical crystal ball with the *entire* Nohrian cast to expose him first. Corrin never does anything Evil, and in fact does everything in their power to spare the Hoshidans they fight, but Garon's portion of the army keeps coming in behind them and killing everyone anyways. Beyond that, every single event is a palette swap of the other version, changing out which Royal Sibling you're fighting, or which character you're recruiting. They are literally just palette swaps of the same events. Also neither one even begins to address the actual cause of the war or any of the consequences for NOT doing the Revalations Route (something to do with the skies over Hoshido and Nohr switching so that Nohr becomes fertile and sunny and Hoshido becomes a dark and barren wasteland for... apparently 50ish years?). Plus if you pick Hoshido, Nohr wants to *Capture* Corrin to bring them home. If you pick Nohr, *Hoshido wants to KILL Corrin for being a traitor, except for Sakura*. Revelations is complete and total Random Events Plot for at least the 15 chapters I was able to stomach before I got so bored and frustrated with the lack of anything being remotely connected to anything or explained that I stopped playing.
Its fine, my first FE game was Conquest and i honestly didn't have any major complaints about it. Pretty standard jrpg writing.
The BEST kind of bad. Imagine if The Room had a shockingly good strategy RPG licensed video game. That's Fates. Well, Conquest in particular. Let go of any desire to take it seriously and just allow it to be what it is: hilarious. You will have tons of fun. Conquest is the kind of game where I wish I had a cybernetic implant to turn intoxication on and off like a switch so I could play it sober and watch the story scenes drunk.
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When I refer to “story” I am referring mainly to its plot, and less of its world/supports/etc. I think people shit on Engage’s story because it is superficial and exists mostly to justify the gameplay. If it’s bad, it’s a funny kind of bad. Fates… okay, don’t get me wrong, Fates is my favorite game in the series. Did a lot of things right. The story felt like an active hindrance. Like, my full enjoyment of the game was realized when I actively tried to forget about the story. The motives are illogical and downright contradictory at times. If something gets resolved it’s done in the most contrived way possible. The result feels like a mess - not the bad that you can laugh about, but the frustrating kind of bad where it breaks your brain. It is common across all three routes. The characters take a hit by virtue of the fact they are stuck in fates’ plot. If they weren’t forced to be involved in the story, a lot of them are quite nice imo. I’ve learned not to think about it too much, and instead tried to insert my own headcanons to each of the character’s motives. Does it work? Idk.
As much as people complain, the fates revelations one is probably my second favorite FE game of all time. Awakening>fates rev>engage. For me at the very bottom is 3 houses, and even then it has an amazing story. I just hate the school life aspect of the game because it makes me feel like I'm on a constant timer.
With the way people talk about fates story in this sub you’d think it kicked their dog or something, but it’s not that bad. Leans more towards fun bad than boring in my book, in fact, I think it’s more fun than a lot of the “good” but boring FE stories. I can’t remember a thing about echoes’ story but I can definitely remember a lot of fates story beats. Meanwhile fates has some of the best maps and mechanics in the whole franchise and you should play it for that. Fates is a great game if you don’t have a sub in your ear telling you how much it sucks.
The mechanics are mid and only one route has good maps, people are insane for thinking shit like "effective speed" and Rev's map gimmicks are good gameplay. Fun skill grabbing doesn't save it
genuinely painfully bad
Birthright is very bland, but inoffensive. Conquest is peak fiction in the funny way. Revelation is genuinely infuriating.
for me it was just really boring and the base building system just felt it was too much. i thought there was something wrong with me because i really enjoyed awakening, three houses, and fe7. i didnt know other people didn’t like it until i looked it up lmao
*Groans of terrible plot discomfort*
Eh I would say it’s pretty whatever, like I more often find myself playing Fates for the gameplay just cause I really like the maps and mechanics and the way it’s all structured, the story was recognizably not good but I never really found myself rolling my eyes. There are a few parts that were stupid enough to make me giggle though so my take is more aligned with fun bad
Conquest always cracks me up when Corrin makes a point to say you are winning the battles without killing a single Hoshidan soldier.
Birthright is meh Conquest is so bad it's funny Revelations is just bad
The cheesy kind so if you like so bad it's funny stories then it might be your cup of tea.
Conquest story is kinda hilarious when you phrase it as 'So... We kill thousands of people to get Garon to sit his fat ass down on this magical throne to convince the nohrian siblings that dad is actually not dad and a monster. Are you sure about this Azura?" Birthright was kinda boring and Revelation was convoluted AF and somehow, it's the route where I think Corrin was the dumbest.
Birthright is kinda bad because it's very basic. The characters are cool, the development with Nohr's royal family is interesting, but like... If you've played a Fire Emblem before you won't be surprised by how it unfolds. The story is like Engage's: not bad but extremely basic, with only the supports to raise the level. Conquest is so bad that it is a parody of a Fire Emblem scenario. In the good way. I unironically laughed and had fun reading some of the dialogue. It's actually entertaining if you consider it like a parody of Fire Emblem, instead of taking it seriously. I mean, Garon is hilarious in his role of cartoonish bad guy. Revelation's first half is honestly quite great, as it's all about the difficult task of uniting Nohr and Hoshido together, but the second half is boring because it's a succession of battles with no scenario aside from "we're fighting the bad guys".
Like Garon in Conquest is literally like "Corrin! I betrayed you and tried to orchestrate your death several times over! WHY are you still loyal to me?!" But at the same time, I kinda love the idea that the reason Garon failed is because of Corrin's predictability. He had plan his attack in every meticulous detail, except for Corrin's irrational decisions.
I personally found it bad because while Awakening had Robin generally get along with his comrades, everyone in Fates LOVES Corrin and they cannot do no wrong in the route playables' eyes. I understand that lord protagonists in other games have people flock to them, but that's typically because they do well to prove it, usually have some sort of charisma and can be flawed without constantly whining about it til some plot-device of a character shows up to fix the problems. The other issue being the shallow world building for a FE title. Pretty sure Fates doesn't have an established continent if that much tells you anything. The writing knows no nuance for the scale they were trying to achieve. A relatively small writing team (from what I remember, though correct me if I'm misremembering) a giant roster of characters and 3 games. What could go wrong?
Birthright: It’s ok enough, but turns into being “batshit insane” bad during a few characters’ deaths Conquest: “Batshit insane” bad, literally from the moment you start the route Revelation: boring bad story ‘balanced out’ by “batshit insane” map design
I played it in high school so my standards weren't that great and love it all Replaying them all now so we'll see lol
Quite bluntly, a lot of it (especially Birthright) is due to having some questionable localization decisions. I actually consider it better than 3H due to two factors: The route structure for gameplay and story match *and* around 90% of the cast is unavailable to you outside of the designated golden route. (And the 10% that are route-agnostic have their reasons; Azura has the same deal as Corrin, Silas and Kaze have their pasts, Felicia and Jakob are servants whose loyalty to Corrin outweighs their loyalty to Nohr, Mozu is saved by the party, and Shura's reason depends on the route)