Two extreme points on the furry spectrum.

In case anyone wanted to know my (brief) thoughts on Fates.

So I got a comment on a Fates video asking if I ever did a “review” of some kind. I thought I might as well copy-past my reply here. Heres my dot-point thoughts on FE Fates. Just... try to be civil. I know everything about this game tends to spark flame wars. Gameplay: -In general, MUCH better than Awakening, especially pair-up. Skills are also nice, being less luck-based and more about flat stat boosts, and personal skills should be in every future game. -Class balance is a bit better. Generals and Snipers got much-needed improvements. Only class I'd call "overpowered" is Master Ninjas. (If they didn't have Poison Strike they'd be fine, but with it they beat both frail units AND bulky ones) -Unbreakable weapons are fine, and for the most part there's still strategy in weapon choice, perhaps even more so. But there are a few problems. Higher-level weapons have drawbacks too large, and Knives are almost completely inferior to Shuriken. Map Design: -Birthright, decent. Conquest, fantastic, nearly perfect. Revelation, bad. -Dragon Veins are a nice gimmick, especially when bosses use them too. -It’s hard to describe (and not really related to map design), but the world map in Birthright and Revelation feels lifeless and boring compared to the ones in Sacred Stones, Awakening and Echoes. Difficulty: -Birthright is a bit too easy. Its Hard should have been harder. Characters range from good to game-breaking. -Conquest is a bit too extreme in its difficulty. Conquest Hard is barely different from Conquest Lunatic. If they'd toned-down Hard to be more of an in-between of Normal and Lunatic, I'd like it better. Character balance is very good overall with the possibly exception of Camilla. -Revelation is all over the place. A few isolated maps are hard, the rest are as easy as Birthright. Many characters are TERRIBLY balanced on this route though.

-I like how higher difficulties aren’t just numerical stat boosts to enemies. Adding enemies, changing equipment, changing objectives, or even changing deployment locations. Please do more of this in future games.

-Lunatic mode is way better than Awakening’s. Less cheap luck-based difficulty. Though its exclusive skills are dumb. Supports/Pairings: -Gaining classes through supports adds depth. -A+ supports are confusing and clumsy. Opposite-sex siblings should be able to A+. You should not be allowed to A+ if you get no classes out of it. (e.g. Azura and Sakura) -Children feel awkwardly shoehorned in and should have been explained better. Paralogues are nice, but none of them have any story relevance. This game either should have had a time-skip or no children at all. -While children aren't as broken as Awakening, and Offspring Seals are great, we're back to FE4 style "some pairings aren't viable at all from a gameplay standpoint". Magic-focused mothers suffer greatly from this, as there are very few magic children. This is more a personal thing, as I pair more for story than gameplay. -I feel like the "every character can marry the Avatar" system hurt some characters/plot points this time. I personally think Gunter, the Hoshidan siblings, Midori, Percy and possibly Soleil should not have been able to marry them. -Before you ask, no, I don’t think Scarlet should have been able to marry Ryoma. I actually don’t like that pairing much. I do think she shouldn’t have been able to marry the Avatar on “that route” though. -Male Avatar can't marry a Gen 1 female without erasing one child forever. -Same-sex marriage totally inferior to straight marriage from a gameplay standpoint, erasing one/two children forever. Spoilers ahead. Also, mostly negativity ahead. Story: -All three routes aren't great.

-WE DON’T EVEN HAVE A NAME FOR THE CONTINENT.

-I am in a VERY small minority that thinks Birthright is worse than Conquest. It adds a ton of random, pointless deaths just to try and give it as much tragedy as the other routes. The final stretch of chapters I found unsatisfying. Sneaking inside the enemy castle so conveniently only evil people get killed is less epic than a full-scale invasion. And it makes Birthright the objectively morally-superior route when they were supposed to be avoiding that. Corrin's characterization is the best of all three routes though. -Controversial opinion: I'm not bothered THAT much about Conquest, it might actually be my favourite of the three. (But that's not saying much) But it suffers from contrivances just to cause tragedy, and the villains often "undo" anything positive Corrin does and can't be rebelled against until it's too late. The siblings shouldn't have been kept in the dark about their father. Corrin not killing things gets hard to believe, and all the "it's not black and white" speeches fall hollow when IT ACTUALLY IS. I disagree with Nohr being 100% evil though. I think the only evil Nohrians are Hans, Iago and Garon. Chapters 21 to 24 are some of my favourite moments in any FE game, though that might only be because the map design is so good. -Revelation is weird. It's the most "complete" route with the best ending, and lets you use everyone. But the plot often hinges of characters being idiots. Corrin here is imo the worst of all three versions, coming off as really stupid at times. The main villain has no backstory if you don't buy the Hidden Truths DLC. -I think Corrin should have been blood-related to the Hoshidan siblings. They not being breaks one of the themes of the game and feels like waifu/husbando pandering. It also requires weird plot contrivances. (Both Sumeragi and Mikoto must have been cheating on/with eachother at the same time??) -Character-wise, they're... okay. I feel like less characters are exaggerated stereotypes compared to Awakening, though they're still present. (Arthur, Peri, Odin) But none of the characters truly grabbed me as amazing. -The children aren't nearly as good characters as they were in Awakening, with only one or two not boring me to death. -Hans and Iago, on all three routes, are irredeemably terrible. Generically evil for no reason. -Controversial opinion: I kind of like Garon. But sort-of ironically. I find him hilariously over-the-top and fun. And he actually has a backstory unlike Hans and Iago. -The final Rev villain is a step up from Grima, but still not that great. (And with Grima's expanded backstory in Echoes, Grima might actually be better than him now) -Mikoto is killed way too early, she barely makes an impact. I like her on Revelation though, as I consider the phantom version of her an exaggeration of her flaws, thus.... giving her some. -Corrin is the worst Avatar so far, and possibly the worst Lord in the series. A lot of their character suffers from player-pandering and the plot bending over backwards to absolve them of any direct guilt in anything. Birthright Corrin is okay though. DLC: -From what little I've played, it's not as good as Awakening's. Hidden Truths is good though. -Grinding DLC suffers heavily from the scaling. At end-game, the only people who can kill the enemies in Boo Camp... are those strong enough to not need the exp anyway. That kind of defeats the point. I like that it's not effortless, but they went a bit too far. Overall: -Conquest has some of the best gameplay in the series by far. I hope future FE games follow its example in map design. -They tried to do a better story than Awakening, but it ended up even worse. Please hire the writers of Echoes to write future FEs from now on. -I like Conquest considerably more than Awakening for its gameplay alone. Birthright is better than Awakening gameplay-wise, but I found Awakening “deeper” overall. Revelation has more characters, but it’s got some big issues.