Fire Emblem Discussion

[Kong Wen]

Sounds like the Church path all around had a better transition than the Edelgard route. In that route you're reintroduced to all the characters via dialogue before the first mission.

Without going too deep into specific spoilers, I can confirm based on what you said that the Church path gives you the cut-scenes for what happens to Lady Rhea and Byleth at the Battle of Garreg Mach, and that the Eagles rejoin Byleth & Seteth mid-battle in the post-timeskip mission, so that sounds like it's more along the lines of the structure of the Kingdom path setup.

FWIW, the Seteth & Flayn support conversations are great.

[The Shoemaker]

Sounds like the Church path all around had a better transition than the Edelgard route. In that route you're reintroduced to all the characters via dialogue before the first mission.

Without going too deep into specific spoilers, I can confirm based on what you said that the Church path gives you the cut-scenes for what happens to Lady Rhea and Byleth at the Battle of Garreg Mach, and that the Eagles rejoin Byleth & Seteth mid-battle in the post-timeskip mission, so that sounds like it's more along the lines of the structure of the Kingdom path setup.

FWIW, the Seteth & Flayn support conversations are great.

I figured as much! I'm guessing the Edelgard route was developed more as a "last minute" addition compared to the other three routes.

[Jordan]

I personally don't think so, as the E3 trailer and the song in it seemed to hint at Edelgard's route being an early decision. But I do feel that it is less fleshed out than the others, and I kind of blame that on them splitting the route into two. From what I've heard, the Church route is actually a copypaste of the Deer route as far as maps and scenes. I do agree with you otherwise as the timeskip on the Edelgard route is really lazy.

[Kong Wen]

I just got to the dance after a bit of a hiatus on my Kingdom run. Turns out you're not allowed to make Cyril a dancer, because he's not one of your students even if you've recruited him! I had him all primed up, too. Drats. Sylvain it is, despite the fact that mine has been getting great growths.

My characters are all level 20 already, although they don't all have access to advanced classes yet. Absolutely steamrolling this run, with plenty of high-quality weapons in stock, 2-3 characters who can reliably tank almost anything, etc. Having professor level A+ at the beginning of the game is a big help because you can take 10 actions at the Monastery, instruct 7 times, and do 3 battles, which makes it very easy to train up skills and clear paralogues.

[The Shoemaker]

Getting professor level A/A+ early on is great for maxing out your students, but it makes it a hell of a lot more tedious to keep everyone's motivation up! Normally if you can only instruct 3-4 students at a time you'd have enough motivation for the month, but I need to do the dining hall meals almost every free day just to keep everyone up! Food was really running out for me by the end. (I didn't realize you could plant veggies until like chapter 21 NG+ since I was just abusing the flowers that give you speed carrots) Because of this I just split up all my monastery time throughout the month instead of doing everything in one go, made it less tedious.

I definitely regret not making Felix a dancer. He would have gotten magic like he already does as a Mortal Servant, but that 20+ avoid with swords would have been really juicy.

Ingrid is probably my best Fire Emblem character ever. Best resistance, speed and Dex in the game, top tier strength, very good defense, and unfathomable avoid. Very rarely will anyone have over a 40% of touching her. Plus she flies.

I'm on the last chapter of Blue Lions now. Dreading it a bit since the last chapter of Black Eagles took me 4 hours to work through

Also, if anyone does the online liaison stuff, pretty safe bet to send out your character with a master seal. It's something everyone can use, so you'll be ranking in a lot of cash. I sent out a character for a few days and they came back with 62 000 gold.

[Kong Wen]

Also, if anyone does the online liaison stuff, pretty safe bet to send out your character with a master seal. It's something everyone can use, so you'll be ranking in a lot of cash. I sent out a character for a few days and they came back with 62 000 gold.

lol in both my runs I sent a character out the first second they were able to go, and never called them back. Totally forgot about them.

I never really found motivation to be a huge problem because you can use support conversations, battle mvps, and gifts to your advantage. If I hog all my exploration points for my own skill training, I usually end up with 1-3 meals left for students, plus you can just keep piling flowers on them.

[The Shoemaker]

Also, if anyone does the online liaison stuff, pretty safe bet to send out your character with a master seal. It's something everyone can use, so you'll be ranking in a lot of cash. I sent out a character for a few days and they came back with 62 000 gold.

lol in both my runs I sent a character out the first second they were able to go, and never called them back. Totally forgot about them.

I never really found motivation to be a huge problem because you can use support conversations, battle mvps, and gifts to your advantage. If I hog all my exploration points for my own skill training, I usually end up with 1-3 meals left for students, plus you can just keep piling flowers on them.

Yes but either way to keep motivation up you'll have to explore, rather than do seminars, rest or battle, since the max motivation you'll get from those options is 100% for a single character, or 50% for multiple characters, which isn't enough. I prioritized meals over gifts because it was faster, but because I could also increase the support between two non-byleth characters, which is hard to do outside of battle.

[Kong Wen]

Yes but either way to keep motivation up you'll have to explore, rather than do seminars, rest or battle, since the max motivation you'll get from those options is 100% for a single character, or 50% for multiple characters, which isn't enough. I prioritized meals over gifts because it was faster, but because I could also increase the support between two non-byleth characters, which is hard to do outside of battle.

Exploring is a pretty good use of your time anyway. With 3 battle points, you can crank through the paralogues and quests using battle only 1-2 times per month, and exploring is a good chance to use 8-9 points on faculty lessons. That's what I'm doing, at least, so I can get as many of Byleth's skills up as possible to make them purchasable in NG++. That's the main reason I like gifts—rather than spending a precious point on a meal, I can use it for skill points for the boss.

[The Shoemaker]

Just finished the Blue Lions storyline. There was more story alteration/additions than I was expecting honestly. While I think this story was done better than the BE alt route, I did appreciate that story more after playing through this route. Also, there's a lot of lore to be found in support convos and paralogues, more than I was expecting.I'm thinking Golden Deer will have a lot of unique lore/story as well.

I think I'll hold off playing the game again until lunatic is released. Which, honestly I'm surprised that along with the Byleth voice haven't already been updated into the game.

Biggest complaints with the story:

Spoiler

1. Byleth sleeping for 5 years is completely glossed over. Barely even a mention. 2. Rhea goes missing for the entire second half of the game, and in the end you don't even see her, just a passing remark of her stepping down as archbishop. Really anticlimactic.

[Kong Wen]

They released Lunatic Mode (as "Maddening Mode") and some stat-boosting items and new costumes yesterday as part of a free update. If you beat Maddening Mode on a fresh file (non-NG+) you get a change to the title screen, probably similar in scope to the change you get for beating the game per se.

I'm about halfway through my Kingdom run (Jeralt just rescued Monica at the chapel) and have really slowed down, not because I'm not as into it, but just because I have other stuff going on and the stakes aren't as high now that I've beaten the game at least once. Still really enjoying how NG+ has been implemented.

Oh, one fun thing about this run is that I have recruited EVERYONE except for Hilda and Lysithea. I need Axe and Faith skills respectively, both of which are A in my previous run, so I could buy them if I wanted to, but I bet I can grind them up before it's too late. I would feel bad for eliminating Hanneman and Manuela's jobs, but they're in my class too.

I think I'll continue my next two runs (Alliance and Empire) on my NG+ file just to give myself an easier time of filling up the support logs, etc. and then I'll consider a Maddening run with whatever my favourite house ends up being (so far that would be Kingdom + Ferdinand, with Dorothea as my dancer).