There seems to be a consensus on the serenesforest.net forums that the characters in Conquest are better than the characters in Birthright. Having played both games I can safely say that I agree with this consensus. That being said, I think the difference between the two casts are marginal in terms of quality writing. For the most part, if either cast were to get massacred Red-Wedding style I wouldn’t give a flying crap. Let’s take a look at the Hoshido royals shall we?
- Ryoma: Uhh…...What exactly are his defining characteristics? He’s got Bushido? Yeah, I’m not coming up with anything. The only reason why we remember Ryoma is because he can solo the Birthright route and his hair looks like it reached Super Saiyan 3 status. While everybody ran the “Lobster Lord” meme into the ground my only thought was that this guy looked like a Super Saiyan 3 fighter. That would explain his amazing combat prowess. Even after looking his character up I really didn’t learn that much more about him. He’s pretty boring if I do say so myself.
- Hinoka: So Hinoka decided to follow Lyn’s example of complete plot irrelevance because you could cut her out of both games stories without making a significant impact on either game. LAME! Personality-wise she’s a tomboy which isn’t anything special. She’s arguably the most Avatar-centric character in the game from a personality perspective. Why is she a Pegasus Knight? Because she feels guilty from not being able to save Corrin when they got abducted.
It reminds me of something the Nostalgia Critic said in his review of the 2003 Daredevil movie: “Uh, you do know that women pick up martial arts all the time right? A lot of women take it up because they like it. I’m just saying that a woman learning martial arts isn’t as rare as you think it is”. (See the review to get the full context) What does that have to do with Hinoka? Well, this is instantly what I thought of when read the support between Corrin and Hinoka. It felt like the writers were trying too hard to make Hinoka look like a strong female character with a soft side for Corrin. Instead of making Hinoka fleshed out they just made her look more Avatar-centric and ultimately less interesting.
(Here's the Nostalgia Critic's review of Daredevil: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAsNhsXqYAQ)
- Sakura: Sakura is…timid. That’s about all there is to her. According to the Fire Emblem wiki, “her meekness comes from her overhearing a rumor from Hoshidan royal maids soon after Nohr's kidnapping of the Avatar that Sakura, not the avatar, was the Nohrian intended kidnapping target. As a result, she blames herself for the Avatar being lost until his return.” (http://fireemblem.wikia.com/wiki/Sakura)
Well that’s just sad. She’s another example of an Avatar-centric character. Also, the really sad part is that Elise is more relevant to Birthright’s plot than Sakura is. Why was her character created again? What purpose does she serve again? It’s seems to me like you could have cut her out of both games and nothing of value would have been lost.
- Takumi: So I have mixed feelings about this guy. On the one hand, he’s clearly an inferior Shinon clone. He’s the douche-bag archer that doesn’t like the main character (hence the Shinon comparison). On the other hand, it’s really nice and refreshing to have a character that doesn’t worship Corrin. The problem here is that his character is still ultimately defined by his relationship to Corrin. What makes him unique from his other siblings is the fact that he doesn’t like Corrin and that’s proof of how this game failed in a monumental way.
The thing here is that in Conquest his reaction is perfectly justified. It makes sense why he wouldn’t like Corrin. He doesn’t really seem to like Corrin in Birthright either until the end, but when he did I wasn’t the biggest fan of that. I kind of wanted him to stay as a douche-bag. What made even less sense was his reaction to Azura. She dies and he says “I wish I’d known her longer, but I miss her. *Cries* “. Okay he says something like that, but you get the point. The problem here is that he’s known Azura for virtually his entire life since she got kidnapped around the same time that Corrin did. How much longer does he need to get to know her? Also, his reaction to Corrin may make sense, but the fact that he’s a douche to Azura doesn’t make as much sense. Yes I know why he does it, but in my mind it makes more sense for him to treat Azura as one of them.
Perhaps that’s just a nitpick but all the same it doesn’t really jive well with me. In the end I guess I have mixed feelings about Takumi. I don’t like him, but I do appreciate the fact that he doesn’t bow down to Corrin like everyone else does.
Once again, I’m not a fan of how a huge portion of the cast is a retainer for Prince / Princess X. It robs them of an interesting backstory and while I didn’t read that many supports I wasn’t impressed by what I saw. Here were the few impressions I had:
- Azama’s a condescending prick
- Subaki is boring
- Kazahana is….I can’t remember much about her. I believe I benched this chick relatively early. I regret nothing :P
- Saizo actually seemed kind of cool
Yeah, the cast of this game bored me. Nohr at least has Leo and Xander. Granted, I don’t like Leo and Xander all that much, but I like those two WAY MORE than the entire cast in Hoshido. That being said, if both Nohr and Hoshido got wiped out and every character in both games got killed in a brutal I probably wouldn’t care at all. Nobody here left as much of an impact on me like the Path of Radiance cast, the Holy War cast or even the Awakening cast (yep, I went there)
Overall Score: D -
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