Editing Fire Emblem (section)

=== Hoshido/White and Nohr/Black ===
In ''Cipher'' this unnamed continent has two symbols, one for each of the two warring nations that dominate it. Japan-inspired Hoshido focuses on swarming while medieval-European Nohr gets abilities that destroy units and bonuses when it destroys units. Shared between the two is the Dragon Blood mechanic possessed by the royal families, which [[Slivers|gives every unit with a Dragon Blood skill the Dragon Blood skills of the other units you have deployed]].
* ''Fire Emblem Fates'' (''ファイアーエムブレム if'') is the 14th game in the series, and the most... ''[[Skub|varied]]'' in fans and critics. One of the most ambitious ''Fire Emblem'' titles in years (and surely no flawed product has ''ever'' been euphemistically described as "ambitious"), ''Fates'''s story is split into three branches, [[What|two of them DLC after buying one of two base games]], where you side with one of two warring nations, or strike off on your own to get to the bottom of what's really going on.  The customizable player character, who is also the Lord, a manakete-equivalent, ''and'' the main character, is a noble hostage, born to the royal family of Hoshido, but raised in the courts of Nohr whose royals treat them like family, while a Nohr princess, a mysterious dancer, is similarly raised as a hostage in Hoshido.  After the evil emperor of Nohr unsubtly tries and fails to engineer your death, but ''does'' succeed in assassinating the queen of Hoshido in the process, war outright breaks out between the two powers, with the PC torn between the only family they've ever known and the moral high ground of their blood-kin.  It sounds like a great setup, doesn't it, and one that offers more moral complexity than the average title? That's what the fans thought too, in the lead-up; reality is often disappointing. The end result was a title that, for a time, was a major divisor and originator of hot takes whether you liked it or hated it, and while by no means a ''bad'' game [[Dawn of War III|like other disappointments]], it has quite a lot of issues that, depending on who you ask, make this either one of the worst installments in the series or are not so awful as to effectively drag all the game's good qualities down into the muck. There're some fundamental differences between the three different versions of the game, which will be spelt out in their own sections, since they went full Pokemon for this sucker and sold them separately. Characters generally have a lot of depth if dug into via supports, and the royal families display an endearing range of personalities, but some make weak first impressions, and the localization team tried to please both sides of the ongoing internet wars between tribes of easily-offended weirdos and instead boiled the entire game's translation in a pot of [[skub]].  Gameplay actually carries over the best ideas from ''Awakening'' and expands on it with an extensive reclass system divided along national lines, giving the two nations different pools of units and different styles of combat, and each character now has a unique personal skill, making none of them perfect replacements for one another even with stats taken into consideration. It also reworks Pair Up in an exciting new way, with adjacent units able to take advantage of offensive supporting attacks from other units that hadn't moved yet, a la ''Super Robot Wars'', and paired up units able to take advantage of stat boosts and block attacks (based on an increasing meter rather than a random chance) but not able to get supporting attacks.  The game experiments with a bold and well-implemented alternative to the series' traditional breakable weapons, making all weapons indestructible, but causing stronger weapons to impose stat penalties, and therefore creating interesting tradeoffs. Throwing knives and shuriken are introduced as support weapons, used more for imposing debuffs on enemies than going for the kill themselves. And various royal family members can use their "Dragon Blood" to make changes to the map as they play, such as drying up rivers, summoning windstorms to slow aerial units, or raising earth bridges to close gaps.  Less well-implemented were the second generation, clumsily crowbarred in out of obligation rather than as a holistic part of the game's design and story, and the "social gaming" features, where the player constructs their own extradimensional town for their characters to relax in between missions, including a bizarre minigame seemingly inspired by Pokemon Amie where the player could touch the faces of their retainers.  (This was clobbered for the Western release.) Overall, a mixed bag.  It has its ups, and plenty of good ideas, enough that it can't truly be called a bad game when considered as a collective whole... but its downs are glaring and include plenty of bad ideas too. Financially, ''technically'' outsold its predecessor, though whether or not that's due to triple-dipping on an existing fanbase by selling three stories separately is unclear.
** ''Birthright'', the Hoshido route, involves the main character siding with the painfully-obvious good guys and their blood family. It's actually reasonably well-written, with an optimistic tone leavened by a few moments of heartfelt tragedy that bite deep, and, humiliatingly, a better halfway-reasonable excuse for the war that never comes up in the Nohr route.  The twist that you're not blood-related to ''these'' relatives ''either'' is spoiled by the Support menu listing that you can S-Support with them, so no judgement. (The fact that they will retroactively have been revealed to know all along you weren't blood related either upon S-Supporting is an unfortunate exception to that "good writing" thing above.)  Gameplay follows the ''Gaiden''/''Sacred Stones''/''Awakening'' mold, with a world map that offers some grinding opportunities between missions. Probably the best of the three, just in terms of having the least wrong with it.
** ''Conquest'', the Nohr route, sees the player siding with Nohr, since the ''rest'' of the royal family of Nohr are actually pretty decent people they love and can't bear to fight, and trying to intrigue their way to the bottom of what's going on from the inside.  It is easily the subject that comes under the most fire of the three stories, with bizarre and nonsensical plot twists and borderline-incoherent character motivations. Gameplay, thankfully, is much stronger, though, generally seen as the strongest of the three games and further arguably one of the series' highlights, with a "classic" ''Fire Emblem'' linear sets of levels with the odd optional detour for a side mission but no between-mission snacking.  Difficulty is higher, but in a good way, with intricate and well-designed maps that possess interesting gimmicks. It's also worth noting that while the story is a mess, the characters thankfully are great in this route, and are generally more popular than Hoshido's characters.
** ''Revelations'', the third route, sees the player character running off on their own and trying to piece together what's happening.  As a story, it's good but not great.  It doesn't have the pathos of ''Birthright'''s best moments, but it's also got a better ending than either and is free from the burden of leaving behind unfinished and unexplained clues that both of them have to bear to lead up to a solution to all the mysteries in this title.  Gameplay-wise, it is unfortunately the weakest of the three, obviously rushed and with some of the shittiest unit balance in the history of the franchise.  We're talking units that show up on maps where enemies can kill them in one hit... [[Fail|while getting to attack twice]].  It allows grinding, and recruiting almost every unit from both other stories (a few do die in the plot in ways that cannot be prevented).