Fire Emblem Birthright

This ones hard to sum up. Its impossible not to compare this to Awakening, hell they literally copied and pasted Tharja into this game. The brilliance of Awakening was the main characters had depth, they were likeable, and everything in the game had reasoning. In Fates Corrin never really grows, he has a great setup but instantly joins into a sickening and constant BROTHER, SISTER, OMG. Robin in Awakening was supposed to be you, represent you and yet Robin had plotted character traits. Corrin just feels empty.

In fact because the game has split into two...actually three versions in reality everything feels stale and half finished. I shouldn't be at endgame with every character married off and dozens more conversations in...and have nothing to say about a character. Ryoma is the future king of the Hoshidan people and there isn't anything I know about him. I don't even know if hes aggressive or not, its bewildering to write so bland and distant.

The children thing also needs some attention here. In Awakening the plot was the current timeline was heading for disaster, so children of the future decide to take the risk and change history...possibly ending their own. In this game its just lazy, two characters have a kid...then they dump that baby in a magic Marvel Comics microverse where three weeks can be 16 to 25 years. So they wait a few weeks and then go recruit their child, who understandably hates them, then after a battle force them to recruit into war. Mind you we aren't talking alternate dimensions so you have some children who are now older than the parents.

Look I understand this sounds nitpicky, and the games purpose is to give you super strong units. Which is very necessary as by endgame I had maybe 6 units that could fight on their own easily, the rest of the 40 some units needing a hope and a prayer and great rng. Yeah I could have made them stronger with a already censored but still ultra creepy minigame.

The other hesistation here for appreciation is the story itself. By the end of Birthright and 40+ hours I know Corrins tale (also his dragon mode is WORTHLESS and a liability if anything) but I still don't really understand Azura and her deal. I don't understand the main boss motive and reasoning since he trails off and no one questions it. I know I enjoyed moments of this game but so much felt like they had this grand game planned then Nintendo is like $$$ split it up dev team *whip crack*. Pokemon works cause its the same exact game, but half the characters are trapped in the other version along with half the plot. AND THEN THE TRUE ENDING IS A THIRD VERSION SO DOES ANYTHING EVEN MATTER?!