Hey, the game's been out for nearly a full game, and between some playing last night and for the past few hours I am up to 8 hours played. (unemployment is...... something else)

Anyway, I am generally enjoying the birthright campaign so far, the unbreakable weapons make me much more willing to use the novelty/special weapons (one of my sky knights just carries around a tree right now), and I like the new/adjusted classes as well. I already have seen so many different kinds of seals though and I know that is going to cause me a headache down the line figuring out how to spec out my guys.

Also, not super into the main plot so far the last mission I did was the wind village one and it all is so telegraphed, even more than awakening, but the support conversations are still really good.

Overall, I don't like it as much as Awakening, but it's still a solid entry in the franchise.

My early thoughts are this:

-Karen Strassman voices a character and uses her Nanako voice. This character is like Donnel from Awakening only she's terrified. Her animation in battle is her trembling with fear. It is my mission to turn her into the kingslayer.

-Conquest doesn't fuck around.

On missions 10 of birthright so far. Really enjoying it. Like most of the team I have so far. Looking forward to playing more of it.

The map design and revamped dual system is already making it better than awakening for me, and I put close to 300 hours on awakening.

Mission 10 of Conquest is a real jerk. It's definitely the poster child for the ways that game doesn't mess around.

I'm really liking the combat. They make some smart changes to the pairing system and add some cool new classes (particularly the knife/shuriken weapons that focus on debuffs). But the story lays the character relation stuff on a little thick, and I don't get as much out of the support conversations in this one:some of them seem short and lacking in substance. Still really liking it though.

Birthright on hard classic is a pretty good challenge itself. It took me a few missions to wrap my head around the altered teamup mechanic, but I think I've got the hang of it now. It does lend to me playing more aggressively with certain units than maybe I normally would, which has gotten me into some really dangerous situations, but it's fun.

Also, the Cain/Abel ninjas are dope.

I'm enjoying it a lot so far. Maybe even more than awakening. Only on mission 9 birthright right now. As others have said, the changes to the support system are really smart. I'm having a fun time figuring out just how aggressive I can be without being punished by the ai's ability to dual strike. The supports also seem better so far for me at least. The ones I've seen have been a bit less creative character-wise than awakening, but they have felt more realistic. I've only seen a small amount of them though so who knows if that's the case for them all.

How's the story? I heard middling things but the internet can be very cynical.

@jamesfargoth: Personally I think it's a step down from awakening. The sibling stuff is a laid on a bit thick, but with only 6 chapters before the choice it kind of has to be. Stuff after it is pretty straightforward military fare. Only half way through, so it could get better,or maybe the other campaigns (Conquest is what I chose) are better. That's my 2 cents, but I'll readily admit to being a cynical interneter.

@rejizzle: Do you feel like it's engaging enough to want to invest in the other two parts?

Birthright is said to be the strongest story because it is standard FE story of "Beat bad guy, no strings attached." Conquest has a lot of middling stuff, and Revelation is all about if you care about why the ending of the other two guys happened.

If you don't care about the vastly improved gameplay, Fates is not the game to play if you loved Awakening.

Conquest Stage 10 on lunatic is giving me Anor Londo flash backs. I spent about 2 hours on it last night, got to the final turn about 5 times with someone dying on that last turn.

The branching off point is too early and the story is sprinting to get there so there's not really enough time for the player to care about either or even for the player character to care about the Hoshido. Picking Conquest also feels really shitty. I understand that they want you to consider that you've chosen family over the obviously evil cause but... eh it wasn't working for me.

The part where I'm just playing Fire Emblem maps though.. fantastic.

@taesoawful: What makes you say that? The story in awakening was weak as well, and a majority of the supports were insubstantial with characters just exhibiting the one or two traits that they have over and over. It's always seemed like the gameplay is the thing to come for in a fire emblem game, so I'm curious what you prefer about awakening to put it over fates when the gameplay is excluded.

@mezza: You read that wrong. I was saying for people that are like Gamespot's Alexa Ray who have no interest in the strategy part, Awakening had a better filled-out story than any of the Fates.

The gameplay is what I came for.

Playing Birthright. Got to chapter 7 and just messing around with skirmishes. The My Castle thing is a novel addition which, in my current part of the story, just functions as the barracks and shops from Awakening. It seems like more Fire Emblem with a slightly improved combat system with how each weapon fits into the new weapon triangle. That said, I'm down for some more Fire Emblem.

Do people really consider Birthright's story better because it's standard FE fare? That seems backwards to me.

@zeik: A lot of people didn't like how Conquest's story ended up being despite being the much better game in terms of design. Like filler chapters.

First impressions are I want this in europe :(

My O&S comparisons earlier to Conquest Stage 10 rang true even until the end. Beat that stage because the last enemy archer missed an attack on the Avatar with the latter having 1 hp. Pretty much how all my Souls boss fights go.

I'll be interested to see what you guys think in general when you get further along. I will be looking to get a 2DS probably just to play all the FE games on it so I will be thinking about whether to play Awakening or Birthright first I think.

I have little experience with the FE series. I played some of the games emulated way after the fact and I played the Gamecube one for a bit but didn't love it. Felt limited to me compared to other SRPGs I have really liked.

I care a lot more about mechanics because I just don't know how to judge what other people think is a good story that well. Mechanics are king for me as far as SRPGs go but a great story puts it over the top. I am sure I will like them both but I would probably like to play the "best" option between the two first.

**Very early spoilers**

I really can't stand the plot. I'm only a few missions in (7, I think, in Birthright) and this one goes full anime far sooner than Awakening did. I felt that there was a nice grounded ramp to the ridiculous time travel nonsense, but this just skips right to dragon transformations and alternate realms right off the bat. I've only played FE7 (I believe that was the one for GBA?) and Awakening, but I don't remember them jumping into a the dragon stuff this soon. I think it's crazy that I've been handed a dragon stone this early in the plot. I was very attracted to Awakening's avatar-as-tactician intrigue, so I feel especially detached from the main character being this powerhouse right off the bat. I love the gameplay and relationship bits, but I feel a little sad about my reception thus far.

Dragon transformations were in the very first game. One thing that is a departure from previous FE games though is that its the first one to give you an avatar character that serves as the protagonist, opposed to a supporting character.

As far as plot goes, even the Nohr side is pretty standard FE fare since you're basically playing as Camus when siding with Nohr as opposed to Marth when siding with Hoshido. It's the writing, not the plot, that leaves much to be desired some times. Support dialogue is great as usual though. Arthur is the best.

I can't get that song that Azura sings out of my head.

Played a small portion of conquest now as well, up to chapter 12 I believe, and am enjoying it more than what I've seen of birthright. Definitely a lot harder, but the lack of grinding is helping me stay focused. In awakening I always got lost in what I *could* do if I took the time to grind every character. With conquest I'm feeling more forced to just pick a set of favorite people, and that's kind of nice. I'm enjoying the characters and classes available in conquest more as well. And it feels more like the choice I would actually make, so it resonates a bit more with me. I don't think I could betray the people that raised me for people i just met even if I found out the former weren't my real family. Even though the king is kind of a huge dick.

My biggest complaint so far with both conquest and birthright is my main character. It kind of bugs me that I'm playing the biggest goody-two-shoes in the world. I can't go one chapter in conquest without hearing my character say we shouldn't kill anyone. And they go out of their way to mention that we're only wounding our enemies every chapter. I get it already. We're the good group in an evil kingdom. You don't have to remind me constantly.

This isn't new to fire emblem characters or to games in general, but it feels way more pronounced here. Maybe its because I got to make my character. He feels like he should be more personal to me, and yet I'm still stuck with my only major personality traits being "I chose this family, now let's do good! Let's change the way we wage war. Spare everyone!" or whatever. I don't think it bothered me in awakening because Chrom and some of the other characters filled that role while the avatar was just an average guy and almost blank slate tactician until the late game. I could project myself onto him more easily than I can with this game's avatar. Maybe it'll get better as the game goes on, but we'll see. Either way not the biggest of deals since it's not really the focal point of my enjoyment. The other characters and gameplay are still great so far.

Ch.10 of conquest is easily my favorite so far. Really fun map.

Seal skills are a bitch to be up against.

@mezza: Chapter 10 is both a bitch and a tease on higher difficulties since the boss at the far south of the map, where you would never venture, has an item he drops if killed.

On lunatic, I don't even know how its possible to check the lower right house.

It makes me happy that everyone had trouble with Conquest Chapter 10, because that chapter wounded my pride when I first played it. I've been playing through Birthright on hard, and the breezy challenge has felt pretty good so far, but I definitely got more out of Conquest. Fire Emblem's better off with diverse objectives. Still waiting for the story to pick up, but my early impression is that it's better than Awakening. I hope.

One thing that's been eating at me is that I picked Samurai for my talent because I wanted Swordfaire, and then realized I'm an idiot and I should've picked a Nohr exclusive class, because I could use that to spread rare talents around my roster, but I didn't do that so OH WELL.

Holy shit the way kids are explained is so eye rollingly bad.

I'm about to throw in the towel for Conquest Chapter 10 on Lunatic, I simply don't have the time.

I love these maps but a blind first playthrough with this route/difficulty in particular is pretty unforgiving. There's also some lategame stuff I'm aware of that can be easily made unwinnable if you didn't plan your pairings/promotions well or simply rolled poorly. That's a pro or con depending on your current stance, I'd imagine things are way more manageable with more experience with this game's changes (and more discussion of map strategy to come).

All that said, I think the overall design of Conquest is wonderful, and Hard sounds like it strikes a great balance.

Also I've heard people say archer Mozu on Conquest is valuable, but it's nearly untenable on Lunatic if you didn't feed her exp immediately in the paralogue (had no intention to use her before I learned about her reclass). Babying units in general is hard, I'm usually forced to make moves just to keep my units alive.

@iodine: No kidding. I just got that little explanation as well. I know it's hard to add in without time travel again, but man talk about forced.

It's pretty damn hilarious, and its not like they don't pull off that kind of absurdity with a degree of grace either. I think the way they acknowledge Awakening characters in Fates is pretty well done.

PSA:

For everyone playing Conquest Lunatic and just need a bit of a hand with the difficulty, turn it from classic to casual. You can still reboot the game to the last save anytime someone is taken out if you would like, but casual gives you actual mid battle saves instead of just the bookmarks.

That way, you won't get fucked over on those long stages that require incredible caution, and then getting reamed by XCOM-esque rng at the very end. (I'm looking at you, stage 12 optional boss.)

@turambar: Yeah I'm not minding the reincarnated characters like I thought I would. I like some of them more actually. The first message about the kids though was just funny. I S-ranked on my main character before getting the chapter that reveals that place where they go, so I didn't understand what they meant. All I could think was why am I sending my baby to the place where I buy my dlc maps.

@rejizzle: In terms of story I will say that awakening after the first 4th the story was pretty sub par story. Fates: Birthright is at least better than that.

In terms of gameplay at least the fixed the broken /dumb pair up system in this game that is actually balanced now.

What's the most efficient way of grinding up supports in Conquest? Because I'm sure there's a faster way than playing that Awakening DLC over and over again.

Also, has anyone tried using the amiibo units? I have Robin and Ike, and of the two Ike seems way better, even if he's not going to double attack anything ever.

Well that campaign is designed after Fire Emblem from a time before you could grind out supports. What you managed to get when you could is what you got so I kinda doubt there is a currently better way. More DLC maps to come is probably all you'd get.

@arbitrarywater: Go online, find castles that are rated as easy or something. Or ask on reddit for a castle that has a bunch of unequipped people.

Can somebody tell me the file size (in blocks) for all 3 games total? I have a little over 30,000 left and am hoping it'll fit.

I have Conquest and Birthright both installed so I can't get an accurate count on them individually anymore but combined they are 12,544 and Revelations is probably not larger than both of those combined so you should be fine?

That was absolutely an issue with me in Awakening. Everyone must be best friends with everyone else and we're not moving on until that happens!

I'm about 6 hours into birthright and really enjoying it so far, although probably a little less than awakening. It's still just a lot of fun. Plus it has two really good archers in it so far, and that's always a great thing.

I'm like 8 missions into birthright (counting the prologue), so I'm not super deep in, but I have a few observations so far.

• Unbreakable weapons are awesome. It's nice to just say "I want a steel sword on this dude" and only have to buy one and not take up like 3 inventory slots with differently broken steel swords.
• For some reason, the characters in this game are completely forgettable to me. They all seem very same-y. In Awakening, even though I couldn't necessarily name everyone, I was able to be like "Oh, that's the big knight who no one notices for some reason." In Birthright, I'm always saying, "Who's this guy/girl again?"
• The game plays as well as Awakening and is just as satisfying to me. I'm playing on Normal, which is a bit too easy, so I might bump it up to Hard and see what that's all about before moving into Conquest (which I hear is less forgiving).
• The S. Links are pretty well-written. So far I prefer Awakening's, but these aren't terrible by any means (yet).
• I'm a lot less invested in the main story than I was in Awakening.

Overall, I'm having a great time with the game. I'm sitting at work right now thinking about how much I want to play it when I get home later tonight. I don't like it as much as Awakening, but a lot of that might be because Awakening was so fresh at the time, and this is basically Awakening 2.0. Really great entry in the series though.

As someone who tried to get into Fire Emblem with Awakening and failed miserably, I will say that I feel I'm doing much better/enjoying Birthright much more than I thought I would. I'm only on chapter 7 or 8, so obviously my opinion could change, but at least for me this feels like a much better game to introduce someone to Fire Emblem games. I'm still pretty terrible at it, and I'm sure I'm missing or ignoring a bunch of game systems, but I'm hoping I don't run into a brick wall later on.

Conquest chapter 17 is another one of those levels. Do you hate ninjas? Well, too bad. That map has all of the ninjas and a bunch of samurai and puppets for good measure, all within a cramped space that demands smart use of dragon vein to create choke-points and avoid getting overwhelmed. It was pretty satisfying to finish it, though I will say that I had to restart a few times because of lousy hit-rates not going my way a few too many times, even with weapon triangle advantage.

Finished Birthright/Hard. Basically need a max level party to beat the game, though I could've used better characters for my last few slots.

General tips that Lance Fighters+Guard Naginata will take care of most encounters and soften up any that live for the rest of the party to clean-up. Takumi is the most powerful character, barely beating Ryoma due to pseudo-flight.

Mechanists (called puppeteers in the JP version) use shuriken and bows and have one of the more potentially broken high-level abilities in the game (replicate), though the Master Ninja is a lot faster and has two great skills instead of one. I made Kaze one because he's already stupid fast and wouldn't mind the extra strength.

I wish I could have an opinion on it, but until (if) the special edition gets reprinted, I'm not playing it.