This might be an old conversation topic but there's one dumb thing about the Babyrealms in Fire Emblem Fates nobody talks about

Community
1

If your characters, in their “present era”, have the capability to have children in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber- I mean Babyrealm- I mean Outrealm, and leave the kids behind with foster parents so the kid will quickly leave the Babyrealm as a fully grown adult…

That means all of these characters fighting a war have the capability to produce as many children as they want, and the only thing stopping them from having a normal number of children is personal preference. Putting aside the ethics of abandoning your children and relying on foster parents, and the ethics of paying couples to spend who knows how many years alone with a kid in a parallel universe where time flows differently, logically speaking Corrin’s army should be producing child soldiers faster than Sonic The Hedgehog breeds Chao and a Pokemon player breeds for Shinies combined. Sure, after a few decades of making kids they’d end up too old to fight, but there’s no way Corrin would be a better fighter than 20 of his/her kids combined. Giving these characters in the story the capability to make child soldiers near instantly and not giving the player playing the game a Make Child button breaks gameplay immersion.

They really should have just done a Future Trunks again. Lucina did it, Silver The Hedgehog did it, both of the Terminator films did it. And here’s how they could have put a fresh new spin on it. Lucina couldn’t reasonably be upset with her parents for trying their best and failing. Each of the children came from the same place, they were united by the same theme, the same goal. But what if in the bad future timeline Fates children all came from, their respective countries were ruined by the consequences of a war Anankos used to take over and ruin multiple countries and the world as a whole? Or if you don’t want to do a giant evil dragon so soon after the last one, a secret cult of rich evil politicians could be behind it all, perhaps with plans to sacrifice countless lives to summon the obligatory final boss giant monster once the world has been made sufficiently awful.

One kid could resent his parents for buying into wartime era propaganda hook line and sinker. One kid could resent his parents for giving all they had to terrible rulers only to become physically and mentally broken war veterans abandoned by their country while leaving him with nothing but debt and bad memories. One kid could be too naive and innocent to know anything adult about the war. One kid could have been lied to by his future parents about what the war was like. One kid could resent his parents for the part they played in a military operation that later turned out to be a war crime that cost countless innocent civilians their lives. One future kid could have had a relationship with someone from another country that broke apart when the parents met and the war criminal parents were recognized. One kid could resent his parents for always moving about to evade the law and anyone who knows what they did during the war. Peri’s kid could call Peri cringe. These kids wouldn’t just be going back in time to help morally upright heroes stop an objectively evil dark magic dragon that goes mwahaha, they’d be going back in time to help stop the folly of their forefathers and the ruination of their futures.

Then again, Fire Emblem Fates is a very Engage-like game when it came to the writing and characterization. Hard to write a “War is hell” story when the story wants a 100% morally justified war against cartoonishly evil villains knowingly or unknowingly serving dragon satan. Expecting something so mature from it would be like expecting a dark political tale from Peppa Pig. There was a character whose personality trait was his love of pickles! It didn’t have to be this way, but darkening the singular future Fates children came from would have drastically changed the tone of the story away from the… How can I put this positively and politely? Is campy the right word for Fates’s… Fates-ness? I know some people call it “too anime” but that always felt unfair when so many animes are “less anime-ish” than this.

Tell me, what do you think of this topic? Should the way the Babyrealms were handled be reflected in the gameplay? In a game with infinite generic recruitments, is infinite generic recruitable kids really any different? Or do you wish the second gen was handled in another way?

3 Likes
2

Wasn’t that some massive creative liberty taken by the localization team?

2 Likes
3

I would consider sending a letter to the developers voicing your concerns.

8 Likes
4

So
Infinite children bred for war?

Ok… I don’t think that is what the authors of Fates had in mind, but sure.

1 Like
5

Fates children served a gameplay purpose and for that I appreciate it, it’s a really good mechanic no matter how much people must ramble on and on about how bad of an idea it is even though the Fates plot already wasn’t anything good.

The child units themselves also are (mostly) pretty nice character wise, Fates supports are good people, it’s done by a different writing team than the story.

I don’t see why this has to exist other than for the sake of you screaming into the void about how much you hate Fates mechanics. There’s nothing to discuss here.

3 Likes
6

You don’t decide that, lol.

1 Like
7

I’m saying that because this isn’t even framed like a discussion, it reads like someone just complaining onto a post.

8 Likes
8

It’s less of a discussion, and more of a rant if you ask me.

4 Likes
9

Tbh in a hypothetical Fates remake, I’d opt to have the child units rolled into the main story and remove the outrealms alltogheter.

They don’t work particularly well with the rest of the story.

5 Likes
10

Mario Bros 2 aka Doki Doki Panic was a massive creative liberty taken by the localization team. And most people will never know this, despite how popular that fun fact seems to be online. For some people, Doki Doki Panic was their first Mario game. For some people, Fates was their first Fire Emblem game and Pickle Boy was their first husbando.

11

…
So you’re looking down on people who like a localized version of something?

The LAST thing you should do with any piece of art is a value judgement. It’s reductive and does nothing to actually get any points across other than your distaste for it and likely offend those that do like it.
Instead, give constructive arguments against something while addressing it’s strong suits and why it may not be enough to redeem it in your opinion.

6 Likes
12

OP offers criticism and a solution. That is constructive. OP also ends asking readers their thoughts. I don’t see how you can write all of this off as merely rambling/complaining at this point.

I also don’t see how you read OP’s latest post and somehow read them looking down on people who like localizations? They’re merely stating facts at that point, without mixing in their own opinion of either these localizations or the people enjoying them.

4 Likes
13

Hi, Fates enjoyer here

Not gonna lie, yeah, even if you like the child units (I do), the concept of the deeprealms and its execution raises more questions than answers.

As an optional bonus for lovers, I think IS could have just taken the lore concept of bond units (a My Castle feature only 3 people know about) and worked from there.

Ss_fe14_bond_unit_creation_1

DLC

A bit of a stretch, but Lilith was created through similar means by Anankos himself (self-sired, as the wikis put it), so it’s not as if life forms made from… whatever, are a foreign concept.

No time flow shenanigans or foster parents necessary. You would simply happen across them like in awakening.

I don’t think it’s a perfect solution, but it would at least be more reasonable without changing much.

3 Likes
14

You completely misunderstand.
The question was not there when I made that comment, is it not rude to assume I would know that OP would change the topic afterwards?

They present the fact that people started with these localized editions as a bad thing, unless I’m reading it wrong.

It also really isn’t worded as constructive in the slightest, using wording like “it’s like expecting a dark political from Peppa Pig” is pretty much the opposite of constructive. At no point does OP list concisely the flaws with the Outrealms, why they are flaws, or why any possible solution would be better in a clear and understandable way. These posts in general have big problems with needing to condense their arguments instead of going off into largely meaningless tangents since, the less of your post is actually giving valid criticism, the harder it is to call it constructive.

I do applaud OP for trying to give solutions, albeit in a confusing and roundabout way and also for actually changing the post to have a question since it isn’t their fault you didn’t look to see if the question was there when I made the post.

3 Likes
15

…
How on EARTH did you come to that conclusion? You think I look down on people who like localized things? How? Why? I have never seen someone “fill in the blanks for me” with the wrong answer like this outside of political debates that devolve into insult-flinging once someone brings up the debate-ending facts.

I don’t have any problem with anybody whose first Fire Emblem was Fates. I think it was morally wrong for the localizers to make that call and decide to change the art in that way. How disappointed do you think people might be when they like this character and then find out he wasn’t meant to be that way? How many people only played Fates, thought the whole series was like that, and dropped it for life? It’s a bad representation of what the original art was and what the series as a whole is about.

There’s a difference between changing Maya Fey’s favourite food to hamburgers because “Americans are more likely to know what a hamburger is” and changing Maya Fey to have “Likes pickles to an abnormally obsessive degree and will often bring it up without prompting” as a major character trait. It’s not the intent of the original character creator for things to be that way. Writing people that obsessed with a specific food always struck me as a “kid on tumblr who thinks Italy loves Tomatoes more than his loved ones and life itself just because he said he likes tomatoes in the show” thing anyway.

I think Fates was a poorly written game. If it wanted to be light-hearted and silly and fun and campy, why does it take itself so seriously so often? If it wanted to be serious, why does it have so many things that don’t work in a serious setting? For example, Xander and Peri. Are we supposed to take Peri seriously when she talks about torturing and killing innocents? Are we supposed to take Xander seriously when Peri works for him? She’s his RETAINER. Yet he doesn’t trust Hans. Fates is an unintentional comedy. Remember when Corrin’s plan for dealing with the impostor among them was to leave the group’s protection with the impostor, trusting that when Corrin failed to come back alive, people would be more likely to suspect the impostor, only for Corrin to be saved because his loved ones don’t trust him to leave the house without supervision? They could have written that scene so Corrin asked a character to follow them “just in case”, but no, they went the Fatesy route.

Avatar: The Last Airbender is able to balance comedic moments and serious moments because one never comes at the cost of the other. The writers knew when to keep it serious and when to crack jokes. Remember that scene where Aang found Gyatso’s skeleton, and Sokka says “Someone needs to feed this guy meat, he’s all skin and bones! No, wait, just bones! Ha!”

…Yeah, me neither. Because that would be an incredibly stupid way to write that scene. Take that scene as a joke and you don’t get the emotional impact deserved by such a serious topic. Take that scene seriously and Sokka seems like a jerk or a moron who doesn’t realize what’s wrong with acting this way. ATLA could have the same excellent action, animation, character design, and music, and everything else, but if it was written like Fates, it would have flopped so hard, it would have been pulled off the air before completion.

Nobody is obligated to treat the writing of an expensive video game or movie or TV show with kid gloves. This is not a passion product made by an indie developer in his spare time for fun. This is a product in a corporation’s franchise. I can believe some people who worked on it were passionate about it, but passion was not their sole reason for making it, because this isn’t a free fangame or romhack or fanfiction or webcomic. Criticism doesn’t have to be entirely positive to be valid. People have already written essays and composed video essays on everything wrong with the babyrealms as a writing contrivance to excuse a gameplay contrivance awkwardly shoehorned in because it worked in fates and the person responsible for the writing really really wanted certain future children from Awakening in this game. “Nobody hates Star Wars more than Star Wars fans”, because nobody is more disappointed in Star Wars’s repeated failings than people passionate about it. I don’t criticize media I paid for out of spite. Mistakes made by others, when analyzed properly, can help future writers avoid repeating them. Fundamental writing flaws break Fates’s world, main characters, plot, and more. I’d be here all year if I listed everything subjectively not to my tastes about Fates and everything that makes what Fates was intended to be objectively nonfunctional. Writing is something the writer has near total control of. Those above you in the company can always impose restrictions and deadlines and focus-test results and demands on you, but good writing can work despite all of these. A game can have terrible art, voice acting, gameplay, and more, but if it has a great story, it will be respected for that. If it has great gameplay despite a terrible story, it will be respected for that. What I said about one of many bad things about Fates was not an excuse to mock Fates, because nobody needs an excuse to mock everything wrong with Fates. Fates was doomed from the start and I’m glad they course-corrected so hard with Three Houses.

That’s a pretty cool idea. It’s kind of funny how “The kid just pops into existence ready to fight” is less silly than what they ended up going with. And there’s precedent for it in myth, with Athena springing forth fully formed from Zeus’s mind.

16

Okay first of all please please PLEASE learn to condense your posts, this is just ridiculous and most of it is just filled with unnecessary tangents

If they like the character then why would they be disappointed, the localization made them like the character.

Incorrect. The game isn’t that far removed from the rest of the series, this is just hyperbole from years if vitriol bring spread about the game.

Pickle man actually doesn’t talk about pickles a lot at all in his supports if you’d actually read them and do actual research about a topic before assuming stuff about it. He talks about pickles in the western release bc in the Japanese version he liked eating pickled foods, something seen as an old person thing in Japan.

I’m not addressing your huge incoherent mess of criticism for the Fates plot bc I largely agree that its poorly written but do like the supports quite a bit as it’s by a different writing team and is actually well written.

Fates actually sold really well so no, it wasnt “doomed” and never really was. The community at the time of release just had a particular distaste for it and thus spread the word that it was apparently an awful game and a failure. There was no course correcting necessary, and in a lot of ways 3H is actually much more of a departure from FE than Fates is. Fates isn’t a bad game, its just not what people wanted at the time.

5 Likes
17

My opinion on the matter:

“Damn spiderverse is about to come out!!, Bro yalls should check it out!! We got spiderman 2099 in there”

2 Likes
18

Ok, a ton to unpack here. First I’m going to address a particular thing I always hate seeing.

While it doesn’t having to be positive, it does have to actually be properly constructive otherwise it just comes off like “here’s how thing should be different, fuck you if you think different, better yet just fuck you”.

There have actually been many people called out for this exact type of criticism solely because it accomplishes nothing since its all what should be changed without giving good reasons why it should be changed.

This would require a COMPLETE rewrite and narritive reconstuction of fates to even remotely make sense, especially since you are asking for time travel to be forced into a story that it doesn’t exist in.

The only real issue that both fates and three houses has is the altering narratives causes there to be difficulties in the writting being solid when the writting staff is split apart for different routes.

Now, as for why I even decided to throw down my cards for this conversation.

Yes, it is. One of the best ones out there had the core antagonist basically called “Hitler 2: Hitler Harder” by his own father. And just to remove any possible question as to what I’m refering to.

d03girpx8fs71
d03girpx8fs712340×1080 103 KB

What I’m ultimately getting at is, “war is hell” stories come in two types that work.

  1. They heavily focus on a squad of grunts who live far longer then expected and the absolute shitshow of a campain they survived while watching others they grew close to die painfully.

  2. Focus on how the higher ups have to deal with the logistics of managing hundreds of thousands of lives like their nothing solely because once you see them as just numbers it gets easier to throw them into hell because they aren’t being seen as human any more.

Fire Emblem has never really been a “war is hell” type game and more of a “fantasy hellhole” story.

Like game of thrones with less political nonsense and none of the incest. (I know, I know. Geneaology.)

7 Likes
19

What the hell is happening here lmao
Are you seriously trying to discuss the deep meaning of Fates storyline?

2 Likes
20

I think ghost and godwyn are just talking over eachother instead of really looking at what the other says lol.
Also god I still have zero idea how someone gets the idea the op was shitting on people who like localized stuff.