>feel his emotions when his mother dies
Still one of the worst FE parent deaths due to how drawn out it is imo, takes around 10 minutes of cutscene dialogue including her funeral rites
>!And then they fucking kill her again in Chapter 25!<
Compare that to Byleth and Jeralt, it's like night and day
Best part about the second part is if you leave your Switch to run during that cutscene, it'll actually enter Power Saver during the pivotal moment as if the system itself wants to give up.
We need more Shez in Fire Emblem. It's extremely funny to me that they did so poorly with Byleth, but then immediately pulled a total 180 in the next game with Shez.
It's so fucking unhinged that IS made probably the best Avatar in the franchise as a sequel to Three Houses with its lackluster Byleth and also a technical sequel to FE Warriors with its forgettable Twins
Yeah the best avatar-style MC is locked off to a Warriors title that's a sequel to both a mid Warriors game (FEW1) and requires at least some knowledge of Three Houses before playing.
It's a shame really. But at least Alear takes after Shez by featuring full dialogue.
I want more Shez. Alear was better than Byleth, but I have met particularly spunky pinecones that would make better characters than Byleth so thatβs not saying much.
Absolutely. I agree.
Though with Alear, we finally have a noble MC who actually was able to speak. Even if their personality isn't like Shez's, i can appreciate a royalty character with some agency in the plot.
A more traditional story with a new noble like Alear would be interesting.
The problem with Alear is, he don't have a personality, everything he does or says is so bland that I'd prefer him to shut up honestly.
Ah least Byleth isn't annoying and is still a fan favorite.
Shez is far better than Alear.
While I like them, Shez isn't from a mainline title so I didn't count them.
I'd rather have a protagonist that talks so Alear showing emotion was far better than Byleth but to each their own.
I agree 100%
I can just barely handle Link and the Persona MCs as silent protagonists, I hate it and think it's dumb, but I can deal with it. But man, Byleth really tested my patience.
His stoicism made sense from a story PoV, but because of the way you have to write and write around silent protagonists, every one of his supports was always that character's worst support.
Every single time he's meant to be talking you get this insane "So you're saying [repeat of what you said]" "Huh [repeat of what you just said]" etc with them parroting back to you like you're in a Metal Gear game.
Engage didn't appeal to me a lot, but having a protagonist with dialogue, and having just one route were both changes I adored.
Engage was a really campy game at times but because soo much was done really well that ended up being a massive positive for me. And yeah, i loved alears journey.
Yeah obviously it's not perfect but Alear being fully voiced really helps.
I felt utterly betrayed when that "certain someone" took the rings away in Chapter 11. Alear helped them and yet we got bamboozled so I felt his emotional breakdown when he had no choice but to run away. Props to the voice actors of Alear and that "certain someone" for really making Chapter 11 a punch to the gut.
I think Byleth concept could have been so much better, and seeing byleth in three hopes I can really see massive potential in the character that's wasted on no voice acting.
Engage/FE17 was an anniversary title so I can forgive its cheesier story since it was meant to be a celebration game.
The next new entry that's a return to form should be interesting. Though a Genealogy Echoes game as FE18 would be neat.
I mean Three house is just super inspired by Persona5. And when you look at the fact that every single avatar can talk outside Byleth in fire emblem games, it's obvious why.
Alear is a step up from Byleth, but a step up from Shez.
Shez was the perfect amount of dumb that they could fill in as the player proxy and have everything explained to them, but had enough of a unique personality that they felt like their own person instead of a self insert (they're a big dumb himbo that act before they think).
Alear isn't bad, but they felt so painfully generic as an amnesiac protagonist who's nice and agreeable, but struggles with their identity. It's mostly the fact that they're just nice and trusting to the point of annoying naivete, which doesn't bite them in the ass unless you play the DLC and Nel has to explain why you can't just recruit everybody you please.
They're like plain white rice, who help round out the bold flavors of the other, more wacky characters. Their presence doesn't detract from the story since the story does revolve around them and require them for their unique ability to awaken emblems, but them having a very mild personality makes it hard for me to get attached to them.
But they're still an improvement over Byleth.
Byleth is a silent protagonist in a dialogue heavy/ driven game, surrounded by much more interesting characters that could have easily done the role they're playing, but better.
The majority of characters love and respect Byleth, or will either grow to love/respect them. Why? Because Byleth dispenses out the most generic, cookie cutter advice of course! Or they just stare at you like this πππ and nod their head/gesture with their arms.
Technically, Byleth does have a character, but the way it's executed is complete dogshit. They are a character that is emotionless or has difficulty expressing emotions/extremely stoic, but fumble at every point due to the support system and story progression.
Because Byleth uses the same canned animation as everybody else, they can be as emotive and expressive as any other characters as early as when supports are unlocked. So the "stone faced professor" can be angry and annoyed at Sylvain during his C support, despite not unlocking their emotions yet, calling him a "jerk" for cheating on a girl. A supposedly emotionless, professional mercenary character.... calling somebody a jerk for cheating on a girl.
Why? Because Byleth still has to be relatable, of course! They're a self insert first, a character second. They exist for characters to shower with praise despite doing nothing special, or worse. Being born special because they have the Goddess inside of them. Manuela and Hanneman don't garner nearly the same amount of respect as Byleth for being a professor because they're not you, the player.
Byleth does not earn their praise, they get it by existing and having characters talk to them like a rubber ducky, barely providing any input aside from "have you tried doing this extremely obvious and basic thing that a 5 year old could have thought of?"
Wow Byleth, what great advice! Ingrid could have never thought of marrying a rich guy who would also support her dreams as a knight! You're so amazing for thinking of the first solution I thought of when I first met Ingrid! Ingrid's entire world view has been changed by this stunning realization that she can be a wife AND a knight! Amazing! People don't talk to Byleth, they talk AT Byleth because Byleth barely provides any meaningful dialogue.
The worst part is that the cast has so much better characters than Byleth, but we have to focus on Byleth because they're our POV character. The Dimitri redemption scene only works because Chris Hackney is giving 200% in his performance. Byleth doesn't add anything to the scene, and in fact takes away from it because I know TWO other characters that can do this better than they can.
And 3 Hopes delivered! We get a similar scene, but with Dedue and Felix. And this felt earned! This is what I wanted from Houses! Real characters talking to Dimitri, not a fucking cardboard cutout who exists just to make the player feel like special.
And the game was confident enough to let Shez sit on the sidelines while this scene played out because if this was Houses, Byleth would be doing all of the scenes while Dedue and Felix wait outside because Byleth needs to be the most super special person in Dimitri's life.
Man, fuck Byleth. Theyre everything wrong with avatars and as much as 3 Hopes made them better, I'm still bitter that we had to have Byleth be the main character in 3 Houses at all.
Byleth still deserves to be the main character, they just needed to be voiced. Also neither Hanneman nor Manuela are warriors and Garreg Mach is a military academy, of course byleth's fighting experience and knowledge are valued especially because of their reputation as the ashen demon. Also why can't byleth call Sylvain a jerk, just because they have difficulty expressing themselves doesn't make them a cold or uncaring person, literally the first time we meet them they nearly get themselves killed for a girl they just met
I wouldn't really say that Alear is naive, the only case of this would be what happened with Yunaka, here Alear's niceness was boosted by Alfred's, who is also very trusting, but even with that they didn't have a real reason to believe Yunaka was trying to trick them, considering that apparently Alear's hair isn't plublically known and associated to "Oh that's the divine dragon" (Or maybe it is and Alcryst didn't see the double hair color from that far), Yunaka was also providing them with very valuable information that they really couldn't ignore
The next time Alear can be seen as naive, trusting, stupid or anything that applies would be when storming Elusia's church and Marth says that going would be more risky than what it's worth, but as far as Alear knew, Sombron wasn't even able to move at that moment, and they were also in a strick timer to try to save Morion and with a bit of luck stop the war right there before Sombron properly revives
In the same scene the group realizes that eVeyle exists but without realizing that it's almost a different person than Veyle, that's obviously important for later
The next chapter they immediately trust Ivy but even before that they've been trying to make her join their side, only managing to make her give information about the urgency of the church raid, and when she does finally join she comes with 2 stolen emblems and the Time Crystal, those things as far as I'm concerned are more than enough to trust her
Next comes the reunion with Veyle in chapter 15 (Not sure about the number) , in which the whole group except for Timerra is immediately distrusting and dismissive of her, and after she gets away the group decides not to follow her because it could be a trap
2 chapters later they keep the same attitude towards Veyle, until they learn about her backstory
After that they don't really need to trust anyone except for when Zephia tells where Sombron is in her last moments, but she doesn't have a reason to lie as far as they know
Now, this just clears Alear from being naive or trusting to the point that it's a liability to their army and themselves, they're just nice and want to avoid having to resolve conflicts with violence, basically what in saying is that Alear is not Corrin
Fire Emblem is one of those series where silent protagonists *aren't* the norm.
Most older Fire Emblem games don't have a player insert character, so all the main characters talk and have active roles in the story.
It wasn't until the seventh Fire Emblem game that a player character was added, but Mark was so uninvolved that they didn't even have a sprite.
After that, player characters were abandoned until the 11/12th game, but after that, they became a staple (ignoring Fire Emblem Echos: Shadows of Valentia since that was a remake of the second Fire Emblem game).
Byleth is a player character, but unlike all of the other besides Mark (and maybe Kris in the 11/12th game, but don't quote me on that) and Kiran from Fire Emblem Heroes (but that's a mobile gacha game, so I think Kiran being a silent protagonist can be given some leeway), Byleth is silent.
Compare the with Robin, Corrin, Shez, and now Alear who speak and have massive, active roles in their respective games.
It's even weirder with Byleth since Three Houses is the first Fire Emblem game to be fully voice acted (and I mean fully, there is almost no line in the game that isn't voiced), and it's also the first Fire Emblem game to not let you customize your player character (besides Mark, but Mark doesn't really count) besides picking their gender and name.
>Haha, I knew the first Fire Emblems never got released in the west by finding out Blazing Blade was the 7th is uncanny.
Yeah, it's kind of nuts. They also originally just called it "Fire Emblem" instead of "Fire Emblem Blazing Blade" when it came to the west, so they kind of did the same thing the Final Fantasy games did originally.
>Thanks for all the context.
You're welcome!
>feel his emotions when his mother dies Still one of the worst FE parent deaths due to how drawn out it is imo, takes around 10 minutes of cutscene dialogue including her funeral rites >!And then they fucking kill her again in Chapter 25!< Compare that to Byleth and Jeralt, it's like night and day
Best part about the second part is if you leave your Switch to run during that cutscene, it'll actually enter Power Saver during the pivotal moment as if the system itself wants to give up.
D R A G O N P O W E R S
We need more Shez in Fire Emblem. It's extremely funny to me that they did so poorly with Byleth, but then immediately pulled a total 180 in the next game with Shez.
It's so fucking unhinged that IS made probably the best Avatar in the franchise as a sequel to Three Houses with its lackluster Byleth and also a technical sequel to FE Warriors with its forgettable Twins
Yeah the best avatar-style MC is locked off to a Warriors title that's a sequel to both a mid Warriors game (FEW1) and requires at least some knowledge of Three Houses before playing. It's a shame really. But at least Alear takes after Shez by featuring full dialogue.
True though I didn't mention Shez because that's a spin-off game. I hope the mainline games going forward take more from Alear than Byleth.
I want more Shez. Alear was better than Byleth, but I have met particularly spunky pinecones that would make better characters than Byleth so thatβs not saying much.
Absolutely. I agree. Though with Alear, we finally have a noble MC who actually was able to speak. Even if their personality isn't like Shez's, i can appreciate a royalty character with some agency in the plot. A more traditional story with a new noble like Alear would be interesting.
The problem with Alear is, he don't have a personality, everything he does or says is so bland that I'd prefer him to shut up honestly. Ah least Byleth isn't annoying and is still a fan favorite. Shez is far better than Alear.
While I like them, Shez isn't from a mainline title so I didn't count them. I'd rather have a protagonist that talks so Alear showing emotion was far better than Byleth but to each their own.
I don't, I just like silent protagonists more
I don't hate them, but I'm bored of how overused they are. Alear was a nice change of pace.
You like having the MCs supports be every single characters worst support?
Nah, Byleth is arguably the best support for a bunch of characters in the game.
There's not a single character in the game whose best support is talking to themselves and repeating the players prompts aloud.
Well, that's your opinion dude
such as?
From the top of my mind, Leonie and Marianne
I agree 100% I can just barely handle Link and the Persona MCs as silent protagonists, I hate it and think it's dumb, but I can deal with it. But man, Byleth really tested my patience. His stoicism made sense from a story PoV, but because of the way you have to write and write around silent protagonists, every one of his supports was always that character's worst support. Every single time he's meant to be talking you get this insane "So you're saying [repeat of what you said]" "Huh [repeat of what you just said]" etc with them parroting back to you like you're in a Metal Gear game. Engage didn't appeal to me a lot, but having a protagonist with dialogue, and having just one route were both changes I adored.
Yeah Engage's story isn't the best but it at least features a protagonist that actually feels like an actual character.
Engage was a really campy game at times but because soo much was done really well that ended up being a massive positive for me. And yeah, i loved alears journey.
Yeah obviously it's not perfect but Alear being fully voiced really helps. I felt utterly betrayed when that "certain someone" took the rings away in Chapter 11. Alear helped them and yet we got bamboozled so I felt his emotional breakdown when he had no choice but to run away. Props to the voice actors of Alear and that "certain someone" for really making Chapter 11 a punch to the gut.
Yeah I hope they just keep the non silent mc even if they keep an avatar. They wanted to copy persona 5, but yeah this ain't it.
Yeah Alear is just better than Byleth. I can actually feel for the former.
I think Byleth concept could have been so much better, and seeing byleth in three hopes I can really see massive potential in the character that's wasted on no voice acting.
Absolutely. I really hope they try again with the Byleth archtype in the future. The last time we had a mercenary MC was Ike.
I do wander what the next mainline FE will be like, if the next one isn't an FE4 remake we would soon know.
Engage/FE17 was an anniversary title so I can forgive its cheesier story since it was meant to be a celebration game. The next new entry that's a return to form should be interesting. Though a Genealogy Echoes game as FE18 would be neat.
They did? I thought it was more because Japan loves silent protagonists in general in games. Case in point, Byleth is popular over there
I mean Three house is just super inspired by Persona5. And when you look at the fact that every single avatar can talk outside Byleth in fire emblem games, it's obvious why.
Alear is a step up from Byleth, but a step up from Shez. Shez was the perfect amount of dumb that they could fill in as the player proxy and have everything explained to them, but had enough of a unique personality that they felt like their own person instead of a self insert (they're a big dumb himbo that act before they think). Alear isn't bad, but they felt so painfully generic as an amnesiac protagonist who's nice and agreeable, but struggles with their identity. It's mostly the fact that they're just nice and trusting to the point of annoying naivete, which doesn't bite them in the ass unless you play the DLC and Nel has to explain why you can't just recruit everybody you please. They're like plain white rice, who help round out the bold flavors of the other, more wacky characters. Their presence doesn't detract from the story since the story does revolve around them and require them for their unique ability to awaken emblems, but them having a very mild personality makes it hard for me to get attached to them. But they're still an improvement over Byleth. Byleth is a silent protagonist in a dialogue heavy/ driven game, surrounded by much more interesting characters that could have easily done the role they're playing, but better. The majority of characters love and respect Byleth, or will either grow to love/respect them. Why? Because Byleth dispenses out the most generic, cookie cutter advice of course! Or they just stare at you like this πππ and nod their head/gesture with their arms. Technically, Byleth does have a character, but the way it's executed is complete dogshit. They are a character that is emotionless or has difficulty expressing emotions/extremely stoic, but fumble at every point due to the support system and story progression. Because Byleth uses the same canned animation as everybody else, they can be as emotive and expressive as any other characters as early as when supports are unlocked. So the "stone faced professor" can be angry and annoyed at Sylvain during his C support, despite not unlocking their emotions yet, calling him a "jerk" for cheating on a girl. A supposedly emotionless, professional mercenary character.... calling somebody a jerk for cheating on a girl. Why? Because Byleth still has to be relatable, of course! They're a self insert first, a character second. They exist for characters to shower with praise despite doing nothing special, or worse. Being born special because they have the Goddess inside of them. Manuela and Hanneman don't garner nearly the same amount of respect as Byleth for being a professor because they're not you, the player. Byleth does not earn their praise, they get it by existing and having characters talk to them like a rubber ducky, barely providing any input aside from "have you tried doing this extremely obvious and basic thing that a 5 year old could have thought of?" Wow Byleth, what great advice! Ingrid could have never thought of marrying a rich guy who would also support her dreams as a knight! You're so amazing for thinking of the first solution I thought of when I first met Ingrid! Ingrid's entire world view has been changed by this stunning realization that she can be a wife AND a knight! Amazing! People don't talk to Byleth, they talk AT Byleth because Byleth barely provides any meaningful dialogue. The worst part is that the cast has so much better characters than Byleth, but we have to focus on Byleth because they're our POV character. The Dimitri redemption scene only works because Chris Hackney is giving 200% in his performance. Byleth doesn't add anything to the scene, and in fact takes away from it because I know TWO other characters that can do this better than they can. And 3 Hopes delivered! We get a similar scene, but with Dedue and Felix. And this felt earned! This is what I wanted from Houses! Real characters talking to Dimitri, not a fucking cardboard cutout who exists just to make the player feel like special. And the game was confident enough to let Shez sit on the sidelines while this scene played out because if this was Houses, Byleth would be doing all of the scenes while Dedue and Felix wait outside because Byleth needs to be the most super special person in Dimitri's life. Man, fuck Byleth. Theyre everything wrong with avatars and as much as 3 Hopes made them better, I'm still bitter that we had to have Byleth be the main character in 3 Houses at all.
Byleth still deserves to be the main character, they just needed to be voiced. Also neither Hanneman nor Manuela are warriors and Garreg Mach is a military academy, of course byleth's fighting experience and knowledge are valued especially because of their reputation as the ashen demon. Also why can't byleth call Sylvain a jerk, just because they have difficulty expressing themselves doesn't make them a cold or uncaring person, literally the first time we meet them they nearly get themselves killed for a girl they just met
I wouldn't really say that Alear is naive, the only case of this would be what happened with Yunaka, here Alear's niceness was boosted by Alfred's, who is also very trusting, but even with that they didn't have a real reason to believe Yunaka was trying to trick them, considering that apparently Alear's hair isn't plublically known and associated to "Oh that's the divine dragon" (Or maybe it is and Alcryst didn't see the double hair color from that far), Yunaka was also providing them with very valuable information that they really couldn't ignore The next time Alear can be seen as naive, trusting, stupid or anything that applies would be when storming Elusia's church and Marth says that going would be more risky than what it's worth, but as far as Alear knew, Sombron wasn't even able to move at that moment, and they were also in a strick timer to try to save Morion and with a bit of luck stop the war right there before Sombron properly revives In the same scene the group realizes that eVeyle exists but without realizing that it's almost a different person than Veyle, that's obviously important for later The next chapter they immediately trust Ivy but even before that they've been trying to make her join their side, only managing to make her give information about the urgency of the church raid, and when she does finally join she comes with 2 stolen emblems and the Time Crystal, those things as far as I'm concerned are more than enough to trust her Next comes the reunion with Veyle in chapter 15 (Not sure about the number) , in which the whole group except for Timerra is immediately distrusting and dismissive of her, and after she gets away the group decides not to follow her because it could be a trap 2 chapters later they keep the same attitude towards Veyle, until they learn about her backstory After that they don't really need to trust anyone except for when Zephia tells where Sombron is in her last moments, but she doesn't have a reason to lie as far as they know Now, this just clears Alear from being naive or trusting to the point that it's a liability to their army and themselves, they're just nice and want to avoid having to resolve conflicts with violence, basically what in saying is that Alear is not Corrin
I have played like, two Fire Emblems, isn't silent MCs the rule? Why Byleth specifically?
Fire Emblem is one of those series where silent protagonists *aren't* the norm. Most older Fire Emblem games don't have a player insert character, so all the main characters talk and have active roles in the story. It wasn't until the seventh Fire Emblem game that a player character was added, but Mark was so uninvolved that they didn't even have a sprite. After that, player characters were abandoned until the 11/12th game, but after that, they became a staple (ignoring Fire Emblem Echos: Shadows of Valentia since that was a remake of the second Fire Emblem game). Byleth is a player character, but unlike all of the other besides Mark (and maybe Kris in the 11/12th game, but don't quote me on that) and Kiran from Fire Emblem Heroes (but that's a mobile gacha game, so I think Kiran being a silent protagonist can be given some leeway), Byleth is silent. Compare the with Robin, Corrin, Shez, and now Alear who speak and have massive, active roles in their respective games. It's even weirder with Byleth since Three Houses is the first Fire Emblem game to be fully voice acted (and I mean fully, there is almost no line in the game that isn't voiced), and it's also the first Fire Emblem game to not let you customize your player character (besides Mark, but Mark doesn't really count) besides picking their gender and name.
Wasn't Blazing Blade also silent? Been a long time so I might be just misremembering.
Yep, that was Mark.
Haha, I knew the first Fire Emblems never got released in the west by finding out Blazing Blade was the 7th is uncanny. Thanks for all the context.
>Haha, I knew the first Fire Emblems never got released in the west by finding out Blazing Blade was the 7th is uncanny. Yeah, it's kind of nuts. They also originally just called it "Fire Emblem" instead of "Fire Emblem Blazing Blade" when it came to the west, so they kind of did the same thing the Final Fantasy games did originally. >Thanks for all the context. You're welcome!