Okay so I have a very smooth brain, haven’t paid attention to the game in years (not like it has been relevant in years especially after three houses), don’t have a long enough attention span to watch a YouTube video that’s over half an hour long or read a Reddit post that is the length of the Bible on why fates bad
Anyone wanna make simple explanations on why it’s bad for someone like me and is it truly as bad as people say?
The main arguments as to why Fates bad are 2: bad writing (characters and story) and gimmicky maps (derogatory), both those things are specially bad in Revelations. Also the Pokemon-esque cash grab that is releasing 3 games that could be made into one made some people angry.
If you play the game thinking it’s gonna be bad, then you won’t like the experience and will emphasize in the bad things, but there are good things about those games. I’ve heard Conquest has amazing gameplay
If I understand correctly, people also dislike FEFates because the main character Corrin are naive and don’t really make the choices for their army on their own.
It’s kind of like whatever Azura says they follow.
Also Male Corrin drugs Soleil in their S support in the Japanese version (which makes it the canon or proper story) so she’ll think he’s a female and fall in love with him or something and who knows WHAT the protagonists think of their, believed to be at the time real, siblings from Nohr and Hoshido they can marry the siblings and can confess to having romantic feelings for them BEFORE knowing they aren’t related which isn’t something that should go through the head of a hero, which is another reason Corrin is garbage as a protagonist IMO.
Okay so I did not know this before and uhhh… what the honest fuck
The gameplay itself is stellar in both Birthright and Conquest.
The story is an incomprehensible mess unfortunatelly. It’s bad. Really, really bad. Corrin is a terrible protag with no agency, none of the emotional moments are gained, Geron is a comically evil villain (thus you chosing Nohr making zero sense logically) . Characters are one-dimensional and boring. It’s painful especially since under all the crappy storyteling is a really good FE game.
Revelation is awful at every front.
I think in line with what everyone else is saying, the flaws are quite valid. The storytelling and overall story is quite flawed and the side bits and extra detail are also kinda poor in both the original text and the official translation (which a lot of fans also dislike because it was a different team that translated this one and they threw out a few things (you can see this most in some supports like the Soliel one and the Beruka and Saizo one)). The gameplay sorta was a mixing pot of wierd things, there is good and bad things in Birthright and Conquest (also the no weapon durability, new coloured triangle and weapon effects were neat). The maps almost all boiled down to just eliminate everyone, however each game sorta had some sorta special maps with some interesting mechanics sprinkled here and there. Other times the new mechanics were horrible (Revalations clear the snow).
However I think if you’re the kind of player that likes Eugenics simulator from Awakening and Geneology, then Fates is actually really fun in this regard with the sheer number of pairs you can get, especially in Revelations where you only end up missing I think 2 playable characters. I know thats pretty much what I ended playing Fates over and over for, just coming up with whacky pairings or fanon pairings with fun builds.
People call Fates “bad” because they focus on the wrong things. The story was stupid and the characters mostly boiled down to one gimmick. There were so many inconsistent characterizations, plot holes, and contrivances. But there’s two problems with that, being that the story doesn’t really matter to the overall quality of a game, especially in the long term, and the stories of Fates are ironic masterpieces. They’re not boring, they fall right flat on their face in the most amusing way possible.
From the people I’ve talked to who don’t like Fates, they also really liked Awakening, which is honestly the easiest game in the series. While they didn’t say it, it was pretty clear from the conversations that the difficulty jump was a big flaw in their eyes.
While I haven’t played Birthright or Revelation, Conquest is one of the best games in the series. It takes mechanics introduced in Awakening makes them actually good, like pair-ups and child paralogues. It also maintains its difficulty from start to finish, which a lot of the other games don’t achieve.
It’s a shame people would pass up such a great game for such a silly reason as “the plot bad lol.”
It’s not
It has a bad story with slightly questionable character designs.
The gameplay is fun and smooth
The characters are enjoyable
The game is ironmanable
It can be either difficult or easy
It has mostly good supports
Jitaro
People like to say Fates bad because people had such a negative reaction to it on launch that it just isn’t able to win anything without someone saying “yeah but Fates bad”
And yes that includes Revelation, it’s decently difficult and gives you all the characters (rip Scarlet, Izana, Yukimura lmao). The maps may be gimmicky and somewhat slow but that doesn’t mean they aren’t worth anything. Try Revelations.
Now if only the male models had as much fanservice, then I’d be able to knock down arguments about Camilla tiddies
Although dark mages do have a crotch bulge so there is some male fanservice
Something that hasn’t been brought up yet
Seriously though, the number of cutscenes that focus on corrin’s rear end is ridiculous, and female class design is definitely at it’s worst in this game.
While I haven’t played Birthright or Revelation
Please play Revelation, and then come up with your new opinion of Fates afterwards.
I have fun with Conquest until around when the army enters Hoshido. Then the map gimmicks start to overwhelm the good and I drop my playthrough for something else. The Kitsune map and Wind Tribe maps are big offenders. There are some decent maps after that point like the Takumi fort map, but I’m not really willing to give my time to games where I’m not having fun. And the story definitely doesn’t motivate me to keep playing.
I’ve beaten all of the routes once, but the only 3DS FE I’ve done multiple full playthroughs of is Echoes.
I think the issue with prioritizing gameplay over story with an RPG is that unfortunately RPGs are made so that story is emphasized over gameplay so there’s just seemingly endless dialogue and if players aren’t invested it can be a huge disappointment.
I absolutely agree, the female models fanservice is taking things way too far IMO.