First playthrough: Blue Lions because I think it's going to be the most interesting path. I won't be recruiting students from other houses because it takes a lot of effort and I'm content with the students I've got. I ended up recruiting Dorothea and it was the best decision I made in the game.
Update -
Favorite House/Path: Blue Lions by far
Favorite Characters: Dorothea, Marianne, and Linhardt
Favorite Dub: English
"It took every fiber of my being to not choose the Church route when faced with her betrayal in the Tomb, and it was just because I didn't want to lose her and Hubert as units that I went down the Crimson path.
That whole scene revealed to me that she does not genuinely care for her peers nor the professor. She literally commands her forces to kill anyone who stops her, without providing so much as an explanation for her former allies as to why they should stand down. She claims, if you attack her, that she doesn't want to kill any of you, but it doesn't change the fact that you and any of them could still die, and she didn't even try to prevent this situation other than using bandits to kill innocent nobles to rally the other countries to initiate the war on her behalf.
That's the main issue with her, although there are many. I'm not given any sufficient reasoning for why war is the only way to make the world better in terms of crests and their relationship with politics. She is a TEENAGER, not even emperor yet, engaging in assassination attempts, and making preparations for war, without even attempting peaceful reform on the throne. War is a last resort option, but for her it was her first decree as Emperor.
Not to mention aiding terrorists, the same people that are the source of her trauma, which she is entirely aware of; the justification being she is using them against the Church that is the source of why people care about Crests in the first place. Sure, Rhea and the Church have major issues, but compared to Those Who Slither in the Dark, practically a death cult with no redeeming qualities, the Church actually does some good and has good people trying to make the world better. Whether or not she intends to destroy them afterwards, call me crazy but I think her priorities are bizarrely backwards here... shouldn't the CHURCH be the one saved for later?
The Fodlan world isn't perfect, but she invites far more bloodshed than there is in the world, and intends to replace suppressed individuals and resentful masses with... suppressed conquered people, and families, common and noble alike, feeling resentment for their losses in the war. All for what... to FORCE people to not value crests? When generations have been founded in the faith, families having been heavily invested in them, such an ingrained value system won't change overnight out of fear. It's not an organic change in belief. War can be justified, but for the sake of ideals... its results would be brittle at best, backfiring at worst.
Her methodology has been excused because she may not live long due to being experimented on like Lysithea. She's taking the theoretically quickest path to change so she can be around for it. Yet... this is a fundamentally selfish desire, one that is quite bad if the price to be paid for her haste is the lives of thousands of people. This is, again, assuming cutting corners for change will actually establish genuine change.
The professors and the house leaders are all sympathetic towards the plight of crests. Changing things is something nearly everyone would have agreed upon, but she doesn't extend a hand but rather an axe."
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"From Byleth's perspective at Holy Tomb:
- Rhea saved Jeralt
- Edelgard and her associates killed Jeralt (even in her route her defense was very weak)
- She never explained to you her plan pre skip.
- Her associates almost killed you with some evil magics just recently, resulting Sothis sacrificing herself.
- She just insulted Sothis being an evil false god despite you know it's not true
- She just ordered to kill you and your friends for resisting taken over.
- She again threatening to kill you if you don't join her
Why would anyone, from Byleth's perspective to join her, unless they are very deeply in love with her, even more so than to Jeralt?"
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"A TON of people are saying, well, she didn't control TWISTD's actions, so she can't be held responsible for what they do.
But here's the thing. When she attacks you in the tomb, she's leading an army consisting entirely of Imperial Soldiers and Demonic Beasts. But those demonic beasts aren't wild ones, they're the ones with stones clearly in their heads, which means they were innocent people turned into monsters.
So, even if you can make the excuse that she didn't order TWISTD to do certain things, she ABSOLUTELY is willing to take innocent people who have been turned into monsters and use them to kill her classmates. I mean, that... that's just really, really messed up.
Because that's not Solon, or anyone else there. That's just her, coldly sacrificing innocent people for basically no reason, other than "they're stronger than normal soldiers". Seriously, you could have just brought more soldiers."
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"I don’t understand how anyone can defend her as being a “good person.” I have read part of her story spoilers.
I can understand liking her because she is complex or a well-written villain, but no matter how you slice it, having a tragic backstory and good motivation did not justify the means to which she went about achieving her ambition. If she was a male character that was not the first promoted character of the game, I find it highly unlikely that she would have the degree of fan support she currently has.
She basically:
1. Went nuclear with her plan. Did not even attempt at diplomacy - I feel like both had a high chance of agreeing with her stance, Dimitri out of support/love and Claude out of his own suspicion of the church. Instead, she tries to kill off both Dimitri/Claude in the beginning. I mean, if things didn’t work out, the option to conquer was always still there, but nope, she did not even try to let other people know what was going on. Because of this, it felt like her actions were based off of more than just destroying the church, it felt like she wanted to re-unite the Empire, but sells it as if she is doing the people a service by starting a war to “save them.”
2. Caught up in her own arrogance - it was either her way or the highway. Although she gave people a chance of surrendering, if you resisted her or tried to reason with her, you were as good as dead. A true sign of a tyrant in my opinion. Even after Dimitri gives her a chance in the end for redemption, she is so far gone that she rather die and uses the dagger he gave her out of love to encourage him to kill her. Geez.
3. Acts like an innocent bystander to all the travesty committed by TWSITD. I think she is at least somewhat culpable to some of the things they’ve done. Even if she hates working with them, that doesn’t stop her from giving them the means to achieve their goals (letting them access into the school and intel, acts as a silent bystander while they are there turning people into rampaging monsters etc.), and she never attempts to get in the way of their plans or reigns them in, only gives them her displeasure AFTER they commit the act. I understand that she did not cause Dimitri’s family tragedy, but she didn’t even try to explain anything to Dimitri besides “I wasn’t involved” - I feel like his descent to murderous madness is at least justified considering the misinformation, yet people act as if Dimitri is anywhere near her level of evil post-time skip just because he is a murderer. I think at least he is aware of who he is, unlike those who prattle on about “doing it for the general populace” he understands that war is messed up and even good intentions can make you a villain.
4. Her goals were selfish. She was willing to plunge the entire innocent and unaware continent into a war, which imo seemed much worse than the alternative of just letting the status quo continue (but that’s completely personal opinion). She acts as if she is doing it for the greater good but it felt more like out of her personal grudge of losing control of “her” Empire and her personal history with Crests (which is more fair of a reason, it was a messed up system). I don’t even mind that her goals were selfish, but the way she acted about them, like she was magnanimous enough to do it for the people, was what pissed me off.
I will play her route, probably last, but I find unlikely for my opinion to change much. I can agree she brought a lot more complexity to the game with her character, but to sell her as a “good person” or “better than Rhea” when she did a lot of questionably evil things is just too much for me.
I think my main gripe with her was more her attitude, she thought she was a lot better of a person than what she really was - and people applaud her for it, as if her “ends justify the means” attitude would be commendable, if this was real life.
Did she change the world for the better? Probably. But my argument was more that there were other ways she could have gone about it that wasn’t as terrible. What happened to Dimitri because of her actions was just horrendous and selfish because of all the love he gave her, yet people somehow bash Dimitri for having an “overreaction.”
If this was the real world, besides people of her nation, I think most people would look unfavourably upon her actions."
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"Rhea steps down and names you archbishop and the noble and Crest problem gets solved peacefully by the surviving characters in a couple of years. Every Edelgard did ends up being pointless and easily avoidable and just ends up in pointless bloodshed. She killed thousands of people for something that in the end could have been solved peacefully
In the Blue Lion path Dimitri calls her out by pointing out that her perfect world is one where only the strong survive and that if she truly wanted to make Fodlan a better place for everyone she should have worked with them rather than against them.
Every character you meet in the game (barring Rhea) is more or less against the notion that the crestless are weak and useless. And that those with Crest should rule all. If she had worked alongside Dimitri and Claude she could have ended the death grip of the church through a Fodland United against it. Instead she plunged the world into chaos killing thousands because of a "I and I alone can fix this problem" mentality"
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"Edelgard sure shows irony.
Her strong attachment to Byleth began when they saved her at the beginning of the story from a bandit. A bandit whom, unbeknownst to them, was hired by Edelgard herself as part of her plan to assassinate both Dimitri and Claude.
On the Golden Deer route, she declares that Claude has no right to change Fódlan due to having insufficient knowledge of Fódlan's history of suffering, yet she herself has a very ignorant and biased view of their history, which she obtained from knowledge passed down from emperor to emperor from her ancestor which conveniently left out how Nemesis was a bandit who committed genocide on the Children of the Goddess, consumed those they slaughtered for power, and pilfered the grave of the Goddess.
In her own route, she bemoans how her enemies refuse to surrender, fight to the last, and then surrender regardless anyways, not understanding why they wouldn't go for the more peaceful option if the result of surrender was the same. In the other two routes, she dies after stubbornly refusing to surrender when the chance is offered to her."
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"In a way, this is part of why I have little intention of replaying Edelgard's route anytime soon, because it's the route that actually tries to feed you misinformation. Edelgard is completely off in regards to Fodlan's history, directing every problem at Seiros/Rhea when it really wasn't just her that was a problem."
Toughest choice of my life, I wanted to go black eagles because of my girl Edelgard... but the other characters just pissed me off, so I ended up going with Blue Lions who i feel have the best characters but probably most generic story :( (not a spoiler, just a guess)
I went Golden Deer. Claude is a cool dude and it has the best waifus (Lysithea and Hilda) in my opinion. Chapter 4 so far? 5? I forget.
Black Eagles (Edelgard is a sexy lady) will be a nice second playthrough. Blue Lions/Church last. But there's no way I can do so many playthroughs at once, so the game might get shelved for a few months when I'm done my first or second playthrough.
Getting Dark Seals seems like a pain the ass. I didn't know you can only get them by either stealing or defeating the Death Knight, who is pretty much untouchable on Hard.
I ordered the game today as I had no money when it was released. I'm actually quite excited about this one even tho I still don't know which house I should choose. I'm actually thinking to go with Golden Deer because of Lysithea.
thedestinedblade said: Getting Dark Seals seems like a pain the ass. I didn't know you can only get them by either stealing or defeating the Death Knight, who is pretty much untouchable on Hard.
Want to promote Hubert to Dark Mage. :/
It is actually very easy to get it for Golden Deer. I play on hard and
Heard great things about this game so I might get it this year. The local game shops I've been to recently often runs out of copies so the demand is pretty high for the physical versions too.
Finished my first route, which was the Black Eagles Edelgard route. I liked pretty much everything about the game except the story and some of the characters, namely Edelgard; her goals and the way she went about achieving them made no sense whatsoever. Hopefully the other routes will be better.
Haven't played their routes yet, but overall I think that Dimitri is the coolest lord and the Golden Deers have the best waifus. Not sure why I picked Black Eagles first.
I've finished blue lions route and have begun the black lions one, and for me, although being a heterosexual male, Felix best tsundere for sure. And I guess if I had to pick a girl, Dorothea and Petra are where its at, giving that Star Fire teen titans go vib, u get me ( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡°)
I have been playing the game a lot lately but its still only my first playthrough with thr Black Eagle House. Still, I don´t know if I have the will to continue playing the game with the outher routes after I am done with this one. Cause it would mean that would possibly have to kill a lot of the characters that I had allied with on my first route.
I know it sounds very stupid to think so but when you spend so much time with these characters, you grow to love them and get attached to them.
Zack312 said: I have been playing the game a lot lately but its still only my first playthrough with thr Black Eagle House. Still, I don´t know if I have the will to continue playing the game with the outher routes after I am done with this one. Cause it would mean that would possibly have to kill a lot of the characters that I had allied with on my first route.
I know it sounds very stupid to think so but when you spend so much time with these characters, you grow to love them and get attached to them.
You can recruit most of the characters from other houses, though it does take some extra work and time investment.
Zack312 said: I have been playing the game a lot lately but its still only my first playthrough with thr Black Eagle House. Still, I don´t know if I have the will to continue playing the game with the outher routes after I am done with this one. Cause it would mean that would possibly have to kill a lot of the characters that I had allied with on my first route.
I know it sounds very stupid to think so but when you spend so much time with these characters, you grow to love them and get attached to them.
Same. Sort of demotivated me from playing the other routes.
Although having looked up the other routes, you aren't missing out on much. The first 60-70% is virtually the same regardless. And the GD/Church routes have a lot of the same maps for the second part supposedly.
I'm not really far into the game but a few times now i had something happen that annoyed me a little. Whenever i (byleth) get these support events and talk to another character it seems that things have happened that i have no idea of.
For example: Talking to Bernadetta "By the way, was that you singing in the greenhouse?" I have no recollection of even seeing/hearing that.
So my question is am i simply missing dialogue/details or is this normal in this game?