{"id":195273,"date":"2021-02-17T12:41:09","date_gmt":"2021-02-17T12:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gamerant.com\/fire-emblem-fates-ambitions-set-stage-three-houses-success\/"},"modified":"2021-02-17T12:41:09","modified_gmt":"2021-02-17T12:41:09","slug":"fire-emblem-fates-ambitions-set-the-stage-for-three-houses-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/2021\/02\/17\/fire-emblem-fates-ambitions-set-the-stage-for-three-houses-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Fire Emblem Fates’ Ambitions Set the Stage for Three Houses’ Success"},"content":{"rendered":"

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While it released for Japanese audiences in June 2015, Fire Emblem Fates<\/em><\/strong> received its international release\u00a0five years ago on February 18, 2016. In many ways the game felt like a victory lap, telling its story across three titles;\u00a0Birthright<\/em>, Conquest<\/em>, and Revelations<\/em>; in a strategy reminiscent of Pokemon<\/em>. After weak performances on the GameCube and Wii, 2012’s Fire Emblem Awakening<\/em>\u00a0saved the franchise<\/a> from extinction, and Fates<\/em>\u00a0was to follow up that success. Intelligent Systems had high ambitions for the game, and while this didn’t always pay off it did set up ideas arguably elevated by\u00a02019’s\u00a0Fire Emblem: Three Houses<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Fates<\/em> primarily tells the story of Corrin, a player-insert protagonist who was originally born in the Japanese-inspired Hoshido to Queen Mikoto, but was stolen by the European-inspired Nohr at a young age; raised\u00a0under its hardened King Garon. In Birthright<\/em>\u00a0version, Corrin sides with their birth\u00a0siblings to stop the warmongering Garon as he attempts to take over the continent. In Conquest<\/em> version<\/a>, they side with their adoptive siblings and act as a commander for Garon’s army while investigating the nation’s evil.<\/p>\n

RELATED: The Various Fire Emblems Across the Franchise Explained<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

This dual story offered fans the chance to experience the same conflict from two perspectives,\u00a0but also\u00a0mechanical diversity. Birthright<\/em> was structured to be easier with ample opportunities to grind for experience, whereas Conquest<\/em> took notes from older\u00a0Fire Emblem<\/em> games<\/a> with tougher level layouts and more restrictive progression. In both respects, Revelations<\/em> was the middle ground, providing the opportunity to recruit most every character for the “true” narrative revealing a crazed ancient dragon from a hidden third land secretly drove the others into conflict.<\/p>\n

Despite Revelations<\/em> being the version meant to tie everything together, it is arguably where most of the cracks begin to show in Fire Emblem Fates<\/em><\/a>‘ interesting approach to game design. Most of the flaws emerge in its attempt to tell a cohesive story with an overabundance of characters.<\/p>\n

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Though Fates<\/em> had a number of specific issues such as a controversial support with Soleil removed from the Western release<\/a>, its\u00a0ultimate shortcoming was the promise of its narrative not proving justified. Rather than the choice at its core letting players see the same war from multiple angles, it pans out into three serviceable, yet largely disconnected stories that conflict with one another at times. Revelations<\/em>\u00a0acts as a third “choice” for Corrin, so it tries to stand alone while putting forth information that explains what players saw in the other options.<\/p>\n

Version differences in\u00a0titles like Pokemon Sword<\/em> and Shield<\/em><\/a>\u00a0often boil down to which monsters are available, and while many wish\u00a0Game Freak went further, Fates<\/em> shows that telling radically different stories with the same characters\u00a0can result in personalities fluctuating. Conquest<\/em> is notably rocky for this, as keeping King Garon the primary antagonist leads the game\u00a0to try and\u00a0justify Corrin’s instinct that their siblings will side with good while also forcing them\u00a0to\u00a0blindly commit atrocities and decry the idea of “justice” for the sake of the plot.<\/p>\n

Primary characters like Nohr’s Prince Xander suffer from being too extremely varied for plot purposes, but the game’s unwieldy roster also means many aren’t stretched far enough. There are eight noble siblings with two retainers each, as well as auxiliary units and child characters based on\u00a0Fates<\/em> carrying forward Awakening<\/em>‘s relationship system. Because of this size, some characters get the short stick with one-note personalities. For example, Prince Ryoma’s retainer Kagero has a huge amount of dialogue revolving solely around her inability to\u00a0paint non-terrifying art. Fire Emblem<\/em>\u00a0is built upon archetypes, but\u00a0Fates<\/em>\u00a0feels\u00a0lazy with differentiating its cast<\/a> at times.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Fire Emblem Fates ‘Petting’ Removed for Western Release<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Another\u00a0token example of lazy character work is Scarlet, a tertiary character who joins Corrin in Birthright<\/em> as a freedom fighter from Nohr (in Conquest<\/em> she’s killed as an enemy boss). Scarlet is\u00a0minor enough that only male Corrin is a romance option, though\u00a0Fire Emblem Fates<\/em> added homosexual romances<\/a>\u00a0for select units,\u00a0but if players choose to marry her in the Revelations<\/em> path too they only have a short amount of time before she\u00a0dies in the story.<\/p>\n

While Scarlet’s death is not necessarily bad, as it gives her more plot relevance, the issue is a seeming oversight in providing the option to marry her in the first place. No dialogue is added to her death scene, and neither Corrin nor their daughter Kana bring it up when she returns as a zombified boss controlled by the mad dragon Anankos. This is in spite of the game letting Hoshido ninja Kaze die in Birthright<\/em>\u00a0should the player not\u00a0have a certain support level; and in Fire Emblem:\u00a0Awakening<\/em> there are unique scenes if player-insert Robin marries Lucina<\/a>. Thus, it is a bizarre exclusion given Intelligent Systems decided to increase Scarlet’s role.<\/p>\n

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All of this is not to say Fates<\/em> is an utter failure in its storytelling; it has some stand-out characters and an interesting mythology surrounding Anankos and the mythical weapons owned by Hoshido and Nohr’s royalty. However, the way Fire Emblem: Three Houses<\/em>\u00a0handles its\u00a0branching narrative<\/a> feels as though Intelligent Systems took a lot of lessons from its triple-game experiment.<\/p>\n

Three Houses<\/em> also has three primary paths for players to send its protagonist Byleth down,\u00a0but offers these choices\u00a0in a more clever way. Regardless of which house Byleth teaches, the\u00a0first half of the game is largely the same, offering players the opportunity to get attached to every character before the paths diverge<\/a>. Fates<\/em>\u00a0has a prologue before its choice, but it’s short and only gives a brief impression of each side.<\/p>\n

After the time skip in Three Houses<\/em>, every path follows the same war in\u00a0broad\u00a0strokes despite different sides coming out on top, but what makes every house more unique is they focus on different goals and offer different lore as a result. The Black Eagles route focuses on\u00a0Fodlan’s class system and the atrocities of the Church of Seiros<\/a>; the Blue Lions route focuses on rebelling against the tyrannical rule of the Adrestian Empire; and the Golden Deer route focuses on the continent’s mythology and tackles its evil secret society, Those Who Slither in the Dark.<\/p>\n

Because every path in Three Houses<\/em> uses its war as a set dressing to explore different goals and tell unique stories, it ultimately comes out stronger than Fates<\/em>, which\u00a0strained to turn the same war into three different stories entirely. Part of that is undoubtedly due to the more restricted cast of characters in Three Houses<\/em>, and the less abundant support conversations<\/a>. While this takes away some player agency in choosing who to pair together, it means every interaction exists to give new insights into its cast members.<\/p>\n

Some of Fates<\/em>‘ ambitious shortcomings pushed the series forward, but the games also defined an era of success thanks to its characters headlining titles like Fire Emblem Warriors<\/em> and Fire Emblem Heroes\u00a0<\/em>– not to mention Corrin’s addition to Super Smash Bros. 4<\/em><\/a>. Mechanical decisions\u00a0like using\u00a0Fire Emblem<\/em> games of the past to create tiers of difficulty built upon well-honed gameplay with\u00a0options for players to further customize their units. Five years later, Fates<\/em> undoubtedly stands out, even if some may not look upon it as the strongest showing in the franchise.<\/p>\n

Fire Emblem Fates<\/strong><\/em> is available now on the Nintendo 3DS.<\/p>\n

MORE: History of Fire Emblem’s Falchion<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n

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Five years on, Fire Emblem Fates stands out for its ambitious aims following the franchise’s revival, though it didn’t always hit its mark.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"slim_seo":{"title":"Fire Emblem Fates' Ambitions Set the Stage for Three Houses' Success - ITTeacherITFreelance.hk","description":"Five years on, Fire Emblem Fates stands out for its ambitious aims following the franchise's revival, though it didn't always hit its mark."},"footnotes":""},"categories":[607],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195273"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/145"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195273"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":195274,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195273\/revisions\/195274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}