i've been thinking a lot about fire emblem fates(fe14) since finishing birthright and i want to type out my thoughts before they fade from me. this probably won't be as in-depth as the fe15 review(if you can call that smear campaign a review), but i'll still do my best to articulate what i did and didn't like about the game.

-gameplay-

let's start with the gameplay. the gameplay in fe14 is, for the most part, quite refined. the weapon triangle is very important and actually scales with your unit's rank in that weapon. i never personally found that to be an issue, but i almost never switched off of the "intended" weapon path for each character, and i can see how this does slightly disincentivize changing weapons later in the game. the weapon triangle has also been expanded to be six weapons instead of three: swords and tomes are effective against axes and bows, axes and bows are effective against lances and knives, and lances and knives are effective against swords and tomes. this is a great change, allowing all units to take advantage of the triangle, which can be a problem for ranged units in other games. the game also features buffs in a more prominent fashion than other games with knives. knives inflict a stat-drop on contact that weakens over turns. these are great, and really incentivize setting up kills. you can also debuff yourself with certain weapons. because weapon weight has been removed, more powerful weapons tend to have a significant downside, whether it be lowered speed, defenses, or some other affliction. this is a fine change. it's annoying that many units cannot double without weaker weapons, but it's not the end of the world. certain weapons also provide flat buffs when equipped, e.g. swords weaken both defensive stats by one point. this is a pretty pointless change in my opinion. the buffs are rarely enough to make a difference, and just feels like a change to make a change.

now for map design. i found the maps to be mostly fine, nothing truly grand besides maybe the finale which forces you to play incredibly aggressively and sacrifice units. they're not abundant narrow choke points, which i appreciate, but some of the midgame maps can be annoying. it's nothing nearly as atrocious as fe15 maps or as long as fe4, but nothing really mind-blowing.

-music and art-

i want to quickly touch upon the music and art before finishing with the story because they are pretty simple to talk about. the music in fates is fuckin fantastic, some of the best in the series. weirdly, it reminds me of star wars, where an otherwise mediocre scene(map) can become pretty fun because of the great soundtrack. the art, on the other hand, is fine. it's that same fe13 portrait style, which is solid. the prerendered cutscenes look great, but the actual gameplay itself usually just looks fine. it's got that same chibi fe13 style which can look goofy after a prerendered cutscene, but it's not too bad.

-story-

the story is by far the most divisive part of fe14, and for good reason. i think the core plot beats are actually solid enough for a fire emblem story. i can get behind a family being torn apart and feeling betrayed by being abandoned by their sibling. i can buy being blind to a corrupt father's actions because he is your father. i can buy realizing your family is evil but being unable to rebel because of your duties to your nation and your family. what i can't buy is how it's executed. king garon is a comically evil villain with no scenes demonstrating anything that could even be misconstrued as loving. he is said to have "changed", but the is never a flashback or even a mention of the past to show what any of the family sees in him. it would've gone a long way to start the game with either a flashback or a prologue in another time to show that this king once did love his family. it makes his family which you spend so much time fighting feel oblivious to someone who literally cackles in front of them.

apart from the main dynamic being hard to swallow, the story itself feels like a lot of doing nothing. it feels like you go many maps just making a journey to a relevant place, leading to a lot of down time that could be used to examine the characters but isn't.

speaking of characters, let's talk about corrin. corrin is one of those peace-loving fire emblem protagonists who hates fighting but is forced to. they might be the single protagonist who mentions peace the most. corrin is in this decently unique position of being between a rock and a hard place, and a good writer would've used that to explore corrin's mentality, how the war personally affects them, and how this desire for peace reflects on others. this is fe14, though, and corrin ends up being an incredibly naive protagonist. there's a moment where corrin trusts someone who just deceived them for some reason and is later backstabbed. this entirely could've worked if, say, corrin wasn't betrayed, and instead this turncoat is truly affected. when he turns, he begs the king to spare corrin because "they're so kind", but why not change this moment to have him admit he was going to betray corrin but was actually moved enough to inform corrin and join him. that would've done a great deal to make peace actually solve problems. corrin is forced to fight their siblings, and it would've been neat if they could talk to their siblings and persuade them to stop fighting. corrin mostly just ends up incessantly prattling on about peace without the story using this in any interesting ways.

-final thoughts-

that's basically all i have to say about birthright. thinking about the story more made me dislike the game, but it's decently fun to just shut your brain off and solo the game with ryoma.