The Final Part of My Fates Reviews

  Soundtrack: So Birthright’s soundtrack is pretty much the same as Conquest’s so it gets the same grade: B +

                          I could totally understand why someone else would love and enjoy this soundtrack. There are good things about it, but personally I still think Holy War and Radiant Dawn had better soundtracks. I’m also leaning towards saying that Awakening’s soundtrack was better as well.

                 The voice acting is fine in Birthright. The only voice I have an actual problem with is Hinoka’s. She sounds like Kallen from Code Geass if Kallen were a chain-smoker. Matt Mercer was better as Chrom than he is as Ryoma, but he does a decent job.

                     I would like to repeat a few points that I’ve made in previous posts but I feel are still worth repeating:

1. I feel like this game gets an extremely easy pass from most people simply because it had a few good gameplay ideas. I agree that the gameplay in Conquest is really good, but I don’t think that the game deserves a pass because of this. Conquest literally has the worst story in the entire series and Corrin has now become my least favorite Fire Emblem character. Those are some pretty massive flaws if you ask me.

2. Another line of thinking that people often use to describe Fates is that “it’s better than Awakening”. As I’ve mentioned before I don’t like it when people say this because Awakening isn’t the only other Fire Emblem game in the franchise. Being better than one game doesn’t tell us much about how good the game is, especially when most people don’t like Awakening. Also, I personally enjoyed Awakening more than this game for reasons that I’m about to explain:
   
   
   

                       I would never try to make the argument that Awakening has better gameplay than Fates. Fates absolutely curbstomps Awakening in this category. There’s no contest. However, I do think that Awakening is superior in just about every other category:

                   The cutscenes were a lot better and the voice acting is vastly superior. I honestly believe that Awakening had a better plot too. Birthright’s story seems like it’s better up until you learn about the spoilers in Revelations and then the story of Birthright gets screwed up, leaving a solid premise ultimately undone. Conquest literally has the worst plot in the entire series and after having to deal with Corrin I kind of forgot that I ever had problems with any other character in the series, including Robin or Severa.

                   I also prefer the cast in Awakening as well. Yeah there’s a huge number of characters that I don’t like or think are too gimmicky, but there are plenty of other characters that I enjoyed: Lucina, Owain, Inigo, Noire, Henry and Gregor. I also like Chrom and Cordelia too. By contrast, the only character in either version of Fates that I came close to liking is Leo and that’s about it. The supports in Fates were boring to read and none of them made an impact on me. A lot of Awakening’s supports made me laugh and there were a few that I thought were heart-warming (like Chrom and Lucina’s supports).

                    Awakening also had a better implementation of the second generation system. In Fates, the kids are shoehorned in as a fanservice mechanic. You could cut them out and nothing of value would be lost. Awakening’s system may not be perfect, but at least there’s a reason for them to exist. Plus I had a ton of fun trying to get the perfect skill combinations for the kids. A lot of people have spent a ton of hours trying to get skill combinations for the children too so apparently the game had to do something right, otherwise why would you bother spending so much time playing it? While I’m not entirely decided on this category, I am leaning towards saying that I prefer Awakening’s soundtrack over Fates. The soundtrack in Fates is good, but too many of these tracks sound the same to me, or at least way too similar. 

               Another point people bring up is the gameplay, but I don’t think that this game is perfect here either. There were a huge number of issues that I personally had with this game:

• The RNG: I hate the fact that a 70 - 90 % accuracy can miss easily in this game. One playthrough of Fates had me more RNG screwed than the vast majority of my playthroughs of previous games. That’s sad. A single digit percent chance of landing a critical hit is way too likely to land which I still don’t like. Also, dodging isn’t a thing. I like it when my units can dodge and even when the odds of an enemy miss were high I still got hit. There were so many times when enemies had less than a 30 % chance to hit and they still hit anyway. That’s not good for a strategy game. An RNG like this makes a game more RNG reliant than it needs to be.

• Lunge / Entrap: I hate the Lunge skill and the Entrap staff. Giving the enemy the power to screw over your positioning is a bad idea and in my opinion it doesn’t add to the strategy of the game. It basically turns into a game of “avoid their range or die”. I’m also not a fan of the fact that a bunch of enemy units were given the skill Pass which is also a middle finger to unit positioning since they can move past you and there’s little to nothing you can do about it.

• The Hexing Rod: Being able to cut HP in half is utter bullcrap! How is this fair again?

• Not all of the maps are well designed: Most of Conquest’s maps are well designed and deserve the praise that they get, but not all of them. Chapter 19 and 20 are STUPID and in my opinion are some of the WORST maps in the entire series. The last 2 chapters of Conquest are also poorly designed as well and basically encourage the player to get the skill Pass. Yeah, encouraging the player to get a skill that says no to unit positioning is a sign of bad design. Not being able to save on the last level is a stupid idea as well. The fact that I have to go back and beat the penultimate level before getting another shot at the final level is a little infuriating and it adds nothing to overall design of the game.

                        

    

                           Birthright’s maps sucked for the most part and are pretty much Awakening tier in terms of awful design. Yes, I know it was intentional but I don’t agree that the designers should be given a pass because of this. A map is terribly designed regardless of the designer’s intention and I don’t think that maps have to be poorly made in order to cater to a new audience. I already made a post covering the topic of helping out new players which you can see here: http://thecrusadergrant.blogspot.com/2016/01/ten-tips-to-improve-fire-emblem-series.html

                        I think it’s a little insulting to people’s intelligence to pull a stunt like Birthright did and expect to hide behind the “noob pandering” philosophy. Also, speaking of noob pandering, Phoenix mode exists. Sure none of us are going to play it but it still exists and it’s still one of the dumbest ideas in the series. If you’re planning to use the “it’s optional” argument then I would redirect you to the link I posted above this paragraph that debunks that stupid argument.

                    While I could keep going I think I’ve made my point sufficiently clear. The point is that I really despise Fates and I think that while it had some good ideas, it’s execution was terrible and the game has turned into the biggest waste of potential in the Fire Emblem series. The fact that the premise got butchered and the story got destroyed is extremely disappointing because I was ready to declare this game as my favorite Fire Emblem title in the franchise. It could have beaten Holy War’s plot but sadly it went in the opposite direction and turned into the worst story of the entire series.

                               This game does not deserve the love and praise that it currently gets. I refuse to buy Revelations and at this point I feel like I have to make my own Fire Emblem in order to get what I want because far too many people are encouraging Intelligent Systems to do things that are not good for the franchise.