Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes - Back to Fodlan

SPOILER WARNING

The most recent entry in the Fire Emblem Series called "Fire Emblem: Three Houses" (2019) was my favourite entry since 2005's "Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance", cutting back immensly on the rather annoying dating-sim and fan service influences that had crept up over the course of previous entries instead adding a bunch of other new elements as well as giving the player three (four, actually) different campaigns to change the future of Fodlan depending on the house chosen at the beginning of the game.

Fire Emblem Warriors (2017),  The first Koei Tecmo Hackn 'n Slash spin-off meanwhile is something I consider somewhat of a travesty. Not having any real tactical elements to play around with would have been enough of a bummer as it was but the real crime was that the only thing as paper thin as the story where the characters themselves. 

When I heard that the same studio would develope a sequel to Warriors which simultaneously be an alternate take on Three Houses I was kind of torn.
On one hand I was going to take all the Three Houses flavoured crumbs I could get but on the other hand I couldn't help but worry.

So the big questions is: Where those worries justified?
Thankfully the answer is: Not quite!

Back to Fodlan

While the core of the gameplay is still the same old mind numbingly simple hack 'n slay stuff where one slash sends about a dozen or more soldiers flying and the real challenge is effective time management the inclusion of more tactical options helps against the monotonous button mashing. Equipping your units, sending them to do specific tasks or target specific enemies via the tactical screen is not only possible but even advisable and other than in Three Houses there is no way to turn back time to avoid mistakes (outside of reloading that is, of course).

But the gameplay itself is hardly the most interesting thing in Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes (which I'll call "Three Hopes" from here on out for conveniences sake), no the really interesting things are the stories and character interactions which are equally as deep and multi faceted as they had been in Three Houses and a hundred times more engaging than anything happening in Warriors..

There are of course differences between the three campaigns (though not as many as you'd maybe expect) but what all three of them have in common this time is that the main character isn't Byleth (or Guyleth) but rather a rival Mercenary called Shez (or Hez for the male version because I am still just as hilarious) who loses all their companions in a battle against the Ashen Demon (Byleth) and only survives because of "divine intervention" in the form of Arval Shez's self proclaimed partner in destiny whose powers unlock a very anime looking transformation power-up whichs nature isn't truly revealed until later in the game ...in theory.
In practice you will be able to see the twist coming from miles away especially if you played multiple campaigns of Three Houses.
And make no mistake, the game pretty much expects you to have done as much.
New players are likely to be totally lost and those who only played the Black Eagle or Blue Lions campaign in Three Houses will probably feel like they are missing some information.
mostly because they very much are.

Either way: Shez, now having sworn revenge for their fallen comrades, stumble upon the three House Leaders Edelgard, Dimitri and Claude under attack by Bandits and help them out.
That's how they end up joining the Officers Academy in whichever house they choose, this time however as a student rather than a as a professor.
One of the frustrating things in Three Houses was that the first half of each campaign was always the same chain of events only with different characters. Only by the timeskip in the middle grew the campaigns more distinctive from one another.
Three Hopes handles things very differently. There's two short missions as a student that are the same for every playthrough but after that the schoolyear is cut short as all the students return home to deal with their respective crises.

While you would usually spend a year teaching students, having tea parties, chatting in the mess hall and gifting gifts to students you want to join your chosen house instead there is no real opportunity for it.
A more limited roster of characters can still be recruited later on in different missions if you choose the righ strategies and manage to convince them (mostly by beating them into submission first) with very different motivations.
Some characters are quite happy to join you, others are downright miserable and a good deal of them will never be available. While limiting it feels a lot truer to the respective characters. While a foreign queen like Petra only really follows the Empire because she has to a Knight like Ashe will never quite get over what he sees as betrayal on his country and will only do so because of a promise made to his former King.

Additionally it helps that Shez is just a more fun and engaging character than the stoic "Ashen Demon".

Another thing that all the campaigns have in common is that the endings aren't nearly as definitive as they had been in Three Houses.
Previously no matter which House you chose, it got a "Happily ever after" kind of ending where you had to read between the lines to see how great those endings actually where (which of the two ancient factions are still around? How many characters had to die to get here and why?).

Three Hopes always ends minutes after the respective final battle with all three nations still more or less around so we can only really guess how things continue from then on out.
But enough of that, let us dive into the three campaigns bit by bit and rank them like I did in my article for three houses starting with:

3) - Golden Wildfire (House Golden Deer)

And we start with a bang, or rather a crashing sound as the alternate take on the best campaign of Three Houses is... somehow the worst campaign in the game.
Now it would have been hard to beat the original Golden Deer campaign. Why?
Because it was the most complete story answering the most questions, uncovering the most lies and with the most engaging house leader with the only shortcoming being the majority of other students just not being all that great compared to the two other houses to choose from.
And now?
The Story starts well enough with Claude showing his usual self by being a crafty son of a gun in his fight against the empire but things take a different turn soon enough.
Making peace with the Empire and attacking the Kingdom instead comes completely out of left-field.
It's not necessarily a dumb twist but it feels like a twist for the sake of one rather than anything else.
Things continue to feel kind of disappointing when Claude receives intel from Edelgard, which we as the player know is mostly false, and doesn't ever question it, shattering the perception of the smart leader who sees through all the BS I had from Three Houses.
But at least he still has his heart of go- nvmd he kills his own brother, lies to his friends, makes himself king and let's allied imperial troops die.
All is explained away farely well but between all these instances and now a laser focus on killing the less bad ancient faction (honestly I see Rhea and co more as Lawful neutral than evil) rather than the true evil known as "Those Who Slither in the Dark" makes him and his friends a bit of an unfortunate pawn for the actual bad guys.
In an amusing twist of fate it's actually no one's favourite noble Lorenz who is the most interesting character in the campaign, taking over his fathers job, having a head of his own, questioning Claude for good reasons, uncovering informations about the death of Raphaels parents and being a pretty decent guy for someone so full of himself.

At the end of the day this campaign asks the question: What if Claude didn't uncover the whole truth?
The answer is: Nothing good.

2) - Scarlet Blaze (Black Eagles)

Previously siding with Edelgard meant siding with the woman who allied herself with "those who slither in the dark", kicks off a continent-wide war based on information she had from those rather untrustworthy individuals, twists the truth when it suits her campaign (remember the arianrhod bombing), mocks fallen enemies at deaths door, eagerly suggests killing the defeated Claude and is just generally a bit of a piece of shit.
And those didn't even include the things she resorted to without Byleth's guidance like being okay with turning soldiers into mindless demonic beasts, turning herself into a demonic beast and all that good stuff.
Playing the true Black Eagle campaign was basically playing the bad guy campaign and kind of reminded me of stomping around as Balrog in the shire back in Lord of the Rings Conquests bad guys campaign mode.

This time?
Not so much!
Rather than hanging with those who slither in the dark and later half heartedly vowing to come for them next (with no proof that ever worked after the game ends) Edelgard and Hubert tell 'em to get fucked pretty much immediately even going as far as saving Monica. A good deed even if Edelgard admits it wasn't out of kindness but rather convenience.
They say self-awareness is the first step to improvement and things continue in that way.
Yeah sure the Church and Kingdom still remain the big "bads" of the campaign but it's now on-sight with those who slither in the dark too.
Edelgard and Hubert never quite become nice characters but they do have more genuinely fun and "soft" moments and never go down paths nearly as dark as they used to.
In Addition Ferdinand has a whole subplot about his relationship to his traiterous father which is low-key a highlight of the entire game for me.
Other than most Golden Deer characters who >largely< stay the same you can really see the changes in the story affecting some of the Black Eagles.
And in the end, rather than just taking down Rhea and the Church this time Thales and those who slither in the dark get a good roughing up as well to the point wher it's possible that both leaders have perished, it's kind of open ended but it's the thought that counts.

The question this campaign asks is: What if Edelgard didn't continue to work with Those Who Slither in the Dark?
And it turns out the answer is: A bunch of interesting stuff!
Definitely an improvement.

1) - Azur Gleam (Blue Lions)

In Three Houses the Blue Lions campaign was unique in the sense that it was completely focused on the conflict between the three Nations. The Church was missing it's leader and while Those Who Slither in the Dark where active they continued to do so in their civilian disguises with only some few bits of information hinting at that whole storyline that stayed largely undiscovered thanks in large part to the fact that the team was busy enough keeping their tortured king in check and helping him become an actual human being again with Edelgard being the sole big bad throughout the entire campaign.
Well, as far as they know. Amusingly enough Thales dies aynway while in the guise of Lord Arundel and Rhea gives up her position of power after the events of the game and her own captivity making for a definite-ish but rather odd end to the storyline between those ancient factions.

But what that campaign did better than any other was highlight the bond between the members of it's house and guess what: That is once again it's biggest strength, thankfully this time with a mentally much healthier Dimitri who has his demons and trauma largely in check, letting him be the paragon of good he truly is at his very core.
Dimitri isn't the only one who is better of in this take on the story however. Being thrust into a position of authority Felix makes for a critical thinking right hand man of the King with a much less strained relationship between them even if he still keeps telling Dimitri all the things he doesn't want but needs to hear and making him as important a character in the campaign as Dedue.
But there's more where that came from: Basically all the character development usually reserved to A and S tier support conversations in Three Houses happened outside of them this time with examples like Sylvain being over his skirt-chasing nonsense or Ingrid realizing from the start that racism certainly isn't the answer to grief, both feeling ashamed of their prior behaviour.

The other big change however is that Dimitri dodging his mentally ill edgelord phase makes for a stable leader and thus the Kingdom of Farghus isn't only aware of those who slither in the dark but actively hunts them with Edelgard not being their prime target this time.

That's also how the campaign ends, with everyone (Kingdom, Alliance, Church) united against Thales with the fate of Edelgard and the Empire somewhat open afterwards.

In this case the campaign asks the question: What if Dimitri was never tortured into insanity and what if Faerghus is made aware of those who slither in the dark?

I'm not even going to pretend I am not heavily biased towards my Blue Lions but this time the ranking actually reflects that moreso than it did last time and for good reason.
The actual big bad is dead, not many named characters end up dying, Edelgard may have a future if someone can help her, with their ancient enemies gone the church may be open to talks about new power structures with their allies in the Alliance and the Kingdom with tow leaders very open to change.
It's a lot of assumptions that go into this conclusion but to be fair that's literally true for all of the three endings, thats how they were written.

Conclusion:

I really do like this game, two campaigns improve over the originals, only one doesn't and Shez is a much more entertaining character than Byleth.
But at the end of the day the gameplay is still largely that of another another Dynasty Warriors re-skin which will never compare to the round based strategy game goodness of Fire Emblem Main Games.
I can't say which games story I prefer but I can tell which game I prefer based on that alone.
Still Three Hopes is definitely worth a look if Three Houses sucked you in as much as it did me back then.

Star Wars Visions - Ranked

 

Would you look at that: A new Star War just dropped. Several in fact.
Star Wars Visions is the name of a 9 Episode Anthology of standalone Star Wars Short Films by a number of prestigious japanese anime studios.
Or at least I think they are prestigious because really I don't know s*it about Anime.
I watched some, enjoyed a few, didn't enjoy many more and read some Mangas.
To this day I actually follow the somehow still ongoing One Piece Manga but even I know claiming that means I'm actually a Manga/Anime Fan would be like saying you are into Rap because you like an Eminem Song or you are into Metal because you listened to Metallica's Black Album once.

Anyway what's cool about Star Wars Visions is that it doesn't bother trying to fit into Canon (nor the Legends continuity).
Each Studio was free to do whatever the hell they wanted but how well do these products hold up?
Well that's why I am here: To rank them from my least favourite to my actual favourite.

Beware of Spoilers.

9) The Twins [Studio Trigger] 

This Episode is probably the closest example to what comes to mind when someone mentions a Star Wars Anime.
Wild flowing hair, over the top action, a lot of yelling, sensory overload.

But it doesn't at all stop there, breathing in space, two Star Destroyers pushed together with a canon slapped on it for good measure, kybercrystals that can be used for whatever basically.
It's a wild ride and even though it almost sounds like a parody it takes itself completely seriously.
Sadly I couldn't take it seriously.
Nonsensical over the top-everything stuff is something I enjoy in some instances but it certainly wasn't the case here yet the main problem was that I couldn't really stand either of the twins so I failed to form the emotional attachment requiered and I realized halfway through I would have been a-okay with an ending that would see either Twin just drifting lifelessly off into space.

8) Akakiri [Science SARU]

Akakiri sees a Jedi returning to a planet whose princess is an old acquaintance of his.
Said Princess tries to take back her fathers throne from a Sith Lord with the help of not only our Jedi protagonist but also two middle aged comedic relief characters that are requiered to stick around for story reasons.
Our Jedi has a recurring nightmare/vision that he can't interpret and really the basic structure and the downer ending are cool ideas on paper. The problem is that we simply don't have enough time to care.
At some point one of the comedic relief characters disappears, the Jedi saves him off screen and it doesn't really play into what comes next at all.
The story wants us to see the Fall of our Jedi as an Anakin/Padme situation but we don't actually get to see them all that close apart from one short flashback. More than any other episode Akakiri could have done with a longer runtime to flesh out the characters and make us care but it didn't and sadly I don't like the visual style and character designs at all either.

7) T0-B1 [Science SARU]

T0-B1 is the story of a puppet that wants to be a real boy or rather that is the more famous story it draws inspiration from.
It's really about a Droid that kind of looks like Megaman with a mentor that kind of looks like Doctor Light and his dream to become a Jedi Knight.
It's real Job however is to help the doctor and all the other Droids to bring life to a barren planet which is the professors dream.

Eventually the professor tells T0-B1 that he must find a kybercrystal if he wants to become a Jedi.
That is when he involuntarily alerts the baddies of the planet's location.
The whole film follows a swift and easy to understand Story about dreams and how people can help each other achieve them but while competently done it was a little too cutesy and the characters a little too one dimensional to land much higher on this list.

6) The Duel [Kamikaze Duoga]

The Duel was low-key pushed as the standout story of the entire Anthology with it's distinctive greyscale and red look, the novel it's getting soon and the heavy focus it had gotten in marketing

And it's really not hard to see why.
The character designs are great, the visual style as well and the action, while not nearly as over the top as that of "The Twins" is flashy as hell.
Also the Droid wears a hat which is definitely a plus.

The Story itself also isn't exactly bad. A Ronin type character visits a Village on his travels, the Village gets attacked by Bandits who are led by a Sith and as it turns out she isn't the only Sith around because our Ronin too carries red Lightsabers.
Then they fight and the "good guy" wins and that is it basically. It's fine but the action wasn't jaw dropping enough to make up for the fact that there was very little meat on these bones.

5) Lop and Ocho [Geno Studio] 

Lop and Ocho doesn't only feature a character I'm afraid I'll have to see sexy fanart of soon and entirely against my will because the internet will be the internet, it also features storyline that is better suited for a pilot episode than a standalone film since the uhm... family disagreement it's based on only get worse the longer the Story goes on.
But thankfully it's a compelling enough story about family relations, differing points of view and doing a bad thing for good reasons or vice versa depending on who you ask.

4) Tatooine Rhapsody [Studio Colorido]

If you had told me before that I would enjoy this short film as much as I did I would have probably called you a liar.
It's very short, very simple and looks silly to boot with it's chibi style and crazy space instruments and odd character designs (look at that drummer on the right!)

But it's really just a simple story of a bunch of musicians who just want to be left alone from dangerous family drama and play their music live on stage.
Was the story ridiculous? Kinda. But I found myself really rooting for these weirds misfits to just live their dream of just being in a band in a universe that is usually more focused on Force Users, politicians, fighter pilots, bounty hunters and smugglers.

3) The Elder [Studio Trigger] 

Okay we are in the top 3 and while I'm pretty set on my ranking thus far it is entirely possible that the top 3 could change depending on my mood on that day or on a rewatch but let's start this off with "The Elder".
Surprisingly from the same Studio that gave us "The Twins" this one is much more mature in tone and visual style.

Our main characters are a Jedi Master and his Padawan who both seem to be very heavily influenced by Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi as seen in the Phantom Menace and I am not just talking about their looks and lightsaber colours.
Their entire vibes and at least one specific conversation reminded me a lot of that movie that introduced me to Star Wars and even the fight against the odd looking fellow with the more unorthodox fighting style follows a similar structure where one Jedi get's taken out before the other can come to the rescue.
This time however the roles are reversed and it's the master who wins the fight and neither of the Jedi die.

2) The Village Bride [Kinema Citrus] 

Yet another Story that sees a Village under attack while a force User is present yet there are a lot more factors at play here.
The Attack isn't as much an assaulta s it is a blackmail afair that sees a young woman and her husband agree to go with the bad guys if the Village is left alone instead but there is the womans sister who doesn't agree with the deal and has her own plans in motion, there is a whole storyline about how the Villagers live in harmony with nature and lastly of course there is our Heroine who is conflicted about revealing her identity as a Jedi. There is so much going on in such a short time and yet it's paced perfectly fine and never feels like there is too much going on at once.

1) The Ninth Jedi [Production IG]

Again both the Elder as well as the Village Bride could totally end up in this spot depending on my mood.
What sets this story apart from the other two was that I immediately hoped we'd get to see this story continue. Much like Lop and Ocho it feels like a pilote but unlike said example the ending still felt satisfying rather than being blue-balled so to speak.
A mysterious person calls for Jedi to meet to rebuild the Order, promising them that he has uncovered the old secret of creating a lightsaber. We first meet the Jedi waiting there for their host but only a giant droid is waiting for them so far.
The lightsabers meanwhile do exist and interestingly their blade's are colour-less until used by an actual Jedi... or Sith upon which they get their colour.
After the bladesmith get's attacked his daughter, our main protagonist, has to deliver the lightsabers to the Jedi.
The way the blade colours played into the big reveal was just, as Thrawn would say, artistically done and literally all the Jedi featuring in the Story seem incredibly interesting to me and I, as I said, would be really eager to see a continuation for this particular story.

Assassin's Creed - Ranked from Worst to Best

So I don't have much of an Intro to this. I just played the last main game in the series, called Assassin's Creed Valhalla. Mini spoilers: I'll gush over it a bit further down this list. Major spoilers:
There will be lots of spoilers, so consider that your first and last warning.

But first we'll have to make our way through the many weaker entries of this list so let's get crackin'.... aaafter a little disclaimer:
I won't include the Chronicles Series or smaller titles like Rebellion either.
The only non-main series game I'll give the tip of the hat here is Assassin's Creed Liberation since it mades it's way on main consoles eventually and has a lot of similarities with said main games.

But to climb to the top of the tower we'll have to start at the bottom and we'll do so with:

Assassin's Creed Unity

The first entry for the then new XBox One and PS4 was an infamously buggy mess of a game and even beyond technical difficulties it just wasn't much fun really.
The only real saving grace was the love story which was... fine? 

Assassin's Creed - Origins

Despite the last of the "old" Assassin's Creed Games having been great it was an understandable decision on Ubisoft's part to rebuild the series from the ground up. And going in the direction of RPG's with a massive explorable world and more stat based combat was a sensible decision on paper.
Now if only the story, the gameplay and the world had been nearly fun enough to sustain the change in direction but unfortunately it was far from there yet. Forcing Players to grind through sidequests in order to sell XP-Boosts if they wanted to continue playing the rather tedious campaign didn't help.
A lot of work and a bunch of good decisions went into this game but ultimately they couldn't save Origins from being a juggernaut that had no business being just that.

Assassin's Creed - Brotherhood

Recruiting NPC's and leveling them up to become your very own Assassin's Squad. That was what Brotherhood brought to the table and it was pretty fun for a bit.
But moving the game from densly populated areas to Rome and other places that weren't as filled to the brim with lots of buildings made this the first AC Game where a lot of what you did was just walking through a map that made you realize there was a reason why earlier games hadn't done more open maps just yet.
And the story just came down to "Here is other stuff Ezio did, you know, the guy you like from the better game that came before". There was a certain sense of laziness in the air of which the Devil was very much in the detail like how Ezio jus never removed his hood in cutscenes anymore and dialogue came mostly down to expository chat's that sent you on the way again immediately.
Also killing my girl Lucy for no other reason than her VA not signing on for further games without having a good idea why that twist would be a thing (I know they made up a reason which you only got to hear in a DLC when you stopped to listen and it was quite dumb) didn't sit well with me at all.

The Multiplayer was more fun than expected actually.


Assassin's Creed - Revelations

Same as Brotherhood but the maps and story were a tad better.

Assassin's Creed III

The game was more fun than people give it credit for. Ship Missions were exciting and new, the storyline revolving around the Assassin's House and the Missions that tied into it were great, playing the beginning of the game as templar, having two generations of Kenways fight side by side, everything about the final chase/ fight was actually pretty badass and emotional.
It is just that there were too many bits and pieces inbetween that were stale and boring and prevented all the good bits from coming together in a really satisfying way and the end of Desmond's story was all kinds of disappointing, really.
I mean maybe that was on me having some kind expectations at this point in the series.

Assassin's Creed

Back when the first entry in the series came out it was actually kind of mind blowing.
The graphics looked slick as fuck compared to what we were used to, climbing freely was amazing and we hadn't grown tired of combat that relied way too much on sytlish counter attacks.
Still even back then it was a bit jarring to return to every City 3 times and encountering more and more resistance with each kill, sucking the fun out of the late game.
Basically everything this game did, later entries in the series did better later on BUT at it's place in time this game absolutely rocked.

Assassin's Creed - Odyssey

A more beautiful world, more diverse missions, a much more fun main character in Kassandra (There is no other choice imo), mythical beasts and objects and places, romance options, Odyssey was in every conceivable way better than it's predecessor AC Origins.



And yet it still made you grind (apparently that was fixed later on after I finished it but I didn't go back to check) to play the main missions and tried to sell you exp boosts right there in the main menu so you could level faster like in some free to play online game despite having been a full price game to begin with.
Playing like a looter shooter with gear that you had to replace with higher level stuff every 5 fucking seconds didn't help either and lastly cutting the main story in 3 different ones that had 3 different purposes felt incredibly unfocused and weird.

At this point Ubisoft blatantly could have released a much better product but decided not to in order to sell some microtransactions.

Assassin's Creed Liberation

A short and sweet spin off with outfit mechanics that allowed for three different playstyles dpending on your approach to each mission (Slave, Warrior, Lady) and the first female character made for a very nice day or two in front of my console. Really can't complain much. If anything I'd like that mechanic back in future titles, pretty please.

Assassin's Creed - Rogue

The titles for the old generation of consoles while the shiny new ones got Unity instead.
Yeah, it's incredibly ironic that the old consoles got a game that was better in each and every way.
Borrowing the ship combat focus from Black Flag was an onbvious choice given how popular it was but yet it felt different with it's very much non tropical environment, letting you deal with icebergs and the like while playing on the other side of the conflict for once as an Ex- Assassin turned Templar but not necessarily turned bad guy.
Not too many people had it on their radar from what I remember but whoever had had nothing but good things to say about it afterwards. Even now I'd suggest going back and giving it a chance if you haven't done so in the past already.

Assassin's Creed II

Sometimes a follow up just does everything better than it's predecessor and this is exactly what happened with Assassin's Creed II.
The main character suddenly had personality, the cutscenes were fun as hell and more elaborate, the gamplay was more fluid, the game had much more variety in enemies, maps, side quests and other activities.
If Assassin's Creed was the blueprint for the series, AC II was the entire first floor and basement, fully decorated and everything. Much like Rogue I can still totally see myself going back and giving the whole thing another go even many years and many titles in the series later.

Lastly it was the one time where I really looked forward to every real world sequence outside the Animus.
Desmond grew on me fairly quickly here and I greatly enjoyed his blooming relationship with Lucy and I'm normally absolutely not the most romantic of people but damn, it, beating up bad guys together while the credits role is my idea of a date,

Probably why I am single.

Assassin's Creed - Valhalla

Sometimes a follow up just does everything better than it's predecessor and this is exactly what happened in Assassin's Creed II ...I mean Valhalla.
Well maybe not fully so, I can absolutely see how someone would prefer Kassandra over either version of Eivor but beyond that I wouldn't trade in anything for the previous game really.
The grinding has completely disappeared, in fact around the end I was ridiculously overpowered even just because this world sucked me in so so so fully and quickly that I did a lot of side-quests and activities all the time.

The Map, England especially is, I think, my absolute favourite world map since probably TES V: Skyrim with which I mean it perfectly marries immersion with environmental storytelling and the best possible sandbox experience.
I spent so many hours just wandering around, jumping off cliffs, climbing mountains and stopping just to look around and take in that postcard-worthy landscape with it's amazing lighting system and I say that as someone who played this on a lest-gen console.
And that's is just the start really. Gone is the the endless cycling through new higher level gear, gone are the mictrotransactions, gone is the endless grind to artificially pro-long the amount of time spent with the game when you don't buy exp-boosts, gone is the weird story that comes in three parts.
Instead activities are more diverse , more fun, more rewarding, building your settlement is a thing, you liked fighting a minotaur in the last game and see atlantis in the distance?
Well then how would you like to straight up go to Asgaard and fight frost giants and gigantic wolves?
How would you like to eat mushrooms and get high as fuck to solve riddles? How would you like to blow your horn and raid whatever monastery you come across? How would you like to wield Mjolnir?
And how would you like to engage in medieval rap battles called flyting to raise your charisma?
Tired of all of that? Well how about you sail over to America and hang with some native americans for a couple of hours inbetween? Entirely optional of course.

There are some downsides to this game: Some bugs (nothing even remotely on the level of Unity or Cyberpunk), the present day backstory finally lost me completely, a bit of a missing consistency in Eivor's characterisation and an Ending that probably could have felt bigger and more important and not like an open end to an Invsaion we all know can't have ended all the well given how the series follows actual historic events but it's a rather small price to pay all thing considered.

For the first time since the series "rebooted" the positives to me far far faaaar outweighed the negatives and I never found anything frustrating with the exception of having to win one of these dice games in order to finish the Order Quests.

Assassin's Creed - Syndicate

A more than worthy way to say goodbye to the old kind of Assassin's Creed games before they became huge RPG's, Syndicate is easily the best pure Assasin's Creed Game despite not really reinventing the wheel in any meaningful way or maybe exactly because it didn't do so, focussing instead on enhancing what's already been done before.
The two big new things were two main character, namely the Frye siblings and a grappling hook that spiced up parkouring enough to make it even more fun without going all out Batman Arkham City on us.
London was also just a perfect fit for an Assassin's Creed game with it's narrow streets and high buildings.
Hell even the river had enough traffic to traverse ship by ship by ship.
All the activities were hell of a lot of fun and it's one of the only games ever wehre I just felt compelled to clear the entire map (not counting collectibles).
And if all that wsn't enough there was an entire optional section that saw us following another Assassin who worked in London during one of the World Wars.
Lastly: Evie and Jacob Frye are just easily my favourite protagonists and the way one chapter always put it into Jacob's shoes to do something reckless in the name of good and putting us in those of Evie to do some damage control because other than her brother she actually thinks things through was unique and refreshing and when Jacob had one more chapter at the end of the day it didn't feel unfair it felt like he finally had to fix his own mess because Evie had been right all along.
Still being Siblings there endless quarrels were much more fun that jarring to me at least.
And hey: The Assassin's HQ was a train that was on the move all the time, I mean how can you argue with that, huh?

Assassin's Creed IV - Black Flag

Hardly a real Assassin's game Black Flag was just easily the best pirate game I've ever played:
The On foot-sections are solid but really when you think back what is it you remember?
If you are anything like me it is sailing around, finding diving spots to get upgrades, sinking and entering ships left and right, getting absolutely obliterated by legendary ships in the very corners of the map until I fully upgraded the jackdaw now bringing incredible thrilling fights to them, catching sharks and whales, listening to all the shanties I found on repeat and just generally doing anything that wasn't related to the main quest.
And when I finally cleared the map (again without non-shanty collectibles because fuck em) and finished the main questline it turned out it was great actually and instead of the typical cliff-hanger or underwhelming ending I got to sail out into the sunset with Ann Bonney singing "the partying glass" in what's probably my favourite version of an already great song simply because this game sucked me in so fully and completely that I am not lying when I say it's probably one of my favourite games of all time.

Oh but the out-of-animus stuff sucked hard this time but it really doesn't diminish anything.

Conclusion:

You'll disagree. I know I ranked fan favourites like Brotherhood and Odyssey much further down than the general consensus would and I know that not many people fell hard or Syndicate like I did to which I say:
Great. The world would be boring if we all had the same opinion. Like all media it comes down to subjective opinions no matter what internet neckbeards would have you believe in their youtube videos: "Why X was objectively terrible part 87 of 132".

Peace.

PS: Formatting on this site is an absolute nightmare, ngl.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars - The Good, The Bad, The Ugnaught

Introduction - 12 Years Late to the party

(Skip if you don't care for context)

So I'll start this with saying that I am sorry. Sorry for two things:
1) The pun in the title. Just Kidding, I am not.
2) For writing the coldest hot take in the history of hot takes. Why am I so late with this?

The Clone Wars first aired 12 years ago, following a pilote Movie which I actually watched at the cinema back when I was a kid. So why didn't I watch the show until now?
Well: Because of the Movie.
While not overly devastated when I left the cinema back then I started disliking the movie the more I thought about it.
I didn't like the anime-esque fights, the fact that droids were destroyed like it was a dynasty warriors game, the art-style, the story and I really, really didn't like bratty teenage "Skyguy"-spouting Ahsoka.
I think you could even say I hated her.
Keep in mind I was like 14 or so, we'll get back to her later.
After that I saw one or two episodes of seasons 1 or 2 and they didn't really do anything for me so I decided I'd just leave the show be and maybe give it another try later on.

And then: I saw this.

Darth Maul, the least interesting Star Wars Villain to ever appear in the Star War. Alive and kicking...kicking with massive robot legs that is.

Now to say that I wasn't a fan would be an understatement and thus I decided to just flat out ignore the show.
So what changed my mind all these years later?
It's a long story but it actually ties into the whole "discourse" surrounding The Last Jedi back in 2017.

I found the whole matter to be so tiresome,
the backlash not the movie, that I just straight up stopped bothering with anything Star Wars related until shortly after the Trailers to The Rise of Skywalker got me back into the swing of things (I still have yet to watch Solo):
I activated my existing but never used twitter profile and started getting back to interacting with people over Star Wars, finding that there were much more sane people than I had been led to believe.
After The Rise of Skywalker things became even more chaotic.
Where there once were two sides there were now numerous smaller camps and a lot of confusion.
What stood out to me however was that so many in so many of these camps seemed to agree on one thing. The Clone Wars.

With a season 7 on the horizon, people saying interesting things about characters I hadn't liked from what I had seen and me having some freetime on my hand I figured it was time to give the show another look.
Over the last three weeks or so I have watched all six seasons that are available in Europe so far and while I thought about waiting for the last season to finish and Disney+ to reach for my wallet I figured I have already a lot of stuff to talk about as is.
But rather than going through each season I'll go through the Good, the bad and the ugly.
Now obviously this is all just my opinion and you might disagree, you might not. That's fine.
The Star Wars fandom has too much "if you like X you are wrong" or "y isn't canon to me"  BS going in as is already.
Afterall: Only a sith deals in absolutes ;)

The Good - New Characters, New Stories, New Points of View

And we start with the one thing I kind of suspected would change the more I watched the Show.
From the first season onwards Ahsoka is a lot less insufferable than I remembered her from the pilote film.
Now back then many more people hated on her but I always felt bad to have the same opinion as those who just hated that she had the audacity of being a girl, much like those who later on hated on Rey, denying that Ahsoka had gotten the same treatment back in 2008.
Well let me tell you: She did.
And I'm not proud I was among them even though I think it has a lot to do with me just disliking most bratty-teenager characters by default and over the course of the show she matured and changed into an incredibly likable character far removed from the kid she started out as.
Still I took my dislike way too far back then and I certainly changed my stance now.
In fact when people say Ahsoka is the heart of the Clone Wars I find myself unable and unwilling to disagree.
Her relationships and actions define a good chunk of the show but I would argue that there are two more characters who fulfill a similar role.
Asajj Ventress and Captain Rex, to be more specific.

Ventress at the start didn't seem much more interesting than my least favourite Sith apprentice, Maul, before her.
But from the moment on Dooku betrays her she goes through a metamorphosis unlike any other in the entire show that sees her becoming more and more three dimensional and complex and the roles she plays in different plots become far more interesting over time, especially later on when she helps Ahsoka in one of the best arcs the show has to offer.

On the other side we have Captain Rex who doesn't really change much over the course of the show.
He starts out as a cool but caring Clone Soldier and he is the very same thing in the end only that we now know much more about the trials he went through and how he has deep connections to his soldiers and the Jedi he serves with... apart from one.
Which brings me to one theof the mains reasons  these three characters stand out so much: They all had key-roles in some of the the best story arcs in the entire show:
After six seasons there isn 't a shortage of material to go through but it wasn't hard for me to pic my favourites.

- While only a two episode deal, Rex spending some time with a Deserter and his family in season 2 is an early sign that the Show can be more than it has proven to be at that point in time.

- Ahsoka being captured to be hunted as part of some sick game and leading a bunch of padawan maybe doesn't sound like much when you break it down to the basic premise but these episodes looked better, showed more character depth and conveyed much more emotion than anything we had seen prior with the conversation between Ahsoka and Anakin in the end being my second favourite interaction between them.
This was the arc were I started to notice that I had gone and pulled a 180 on my opinion on Anakin's padawan.

- The Slavers City which gave us the most heroic and charming Anakin we ever got and the interactions between our three heroes felt earnest and fun throughout.

- The 501's war disadventure with a traitorous Jedi trying to get them killed was the greatest soldier/war story I have yet seen in anything Star Wars related. Sorry, Rogue One.

- Ahsoka's trial and everything surrounding it.
Barriss was a surprising choice for a Villain (of course it was clear it was her before we were halfway through, but still), Ventress a great surprise ally, Anakin's conflict between helping Ahsoka and playing by the rules was grand and Ahsoka probably became my favourite character in the show in the process.
And my word that ending was so very emotional.
If I was a person who cries during movies/shows I probably would have done so at that point. It's up there with the "You were my brother Anakin" scene in Revenge of the Sith.

- And last but certainly not least: Fivers coming so close to revealing the Order 66 matter but failing in the End was splendid.

The Bad - Some Killer, more Filler

When The Clone Wars greatest strength is integrating new, interesting and likable characters into the fold, it's weakness is that it doesn't really seem to be doing nearly as well with characters that appeared in the Movie.
Commander Cody doesn't get nearly as much to do as Rex, Fivers, Echo and who have you despite being right there and ready for use.
We don't really get a look at how he interacts with his fellow soldiers we don't really have an idea how close he and Obi-wan are.
As far as the Jedi council goes we only really expand on Plo-Koon's character   and focus on him for more than one episode apart from Windu, Yoda and our main heroes.
There are younglings who play a role in one single arc but they are kind of lumped in with something that I'll throw into the last category.
All these things can be forgiven but what I really don't think can be is the fact the Show barely if at all expands upon the relationship between ObiWan and Anakin.
Anakin has one, maybe two heart to heart talks with Obi-Wan and while they are often together the show doesn't seem to be interested in having them do much more than having them chase down and lose sight of Dooku, Grivious and whoever else needs some chasing.
Generally speaking as soon as ObiWan enters a scene we always know the enemy will escape.
It's in the nature of an episodic show to have multiple encounters between the heroes and Villains without a definitive outcome but there is so much escaping going on it makes pretty much everyone involved look rather silly after a while.
But it's worse for our Villains if we are being honest.

Mother Talzin is so ambigous and lacking characterisation that she usually isn't more than a plot device for whatever the story demands.

Count Dooku has been done dirty the most. As a former Jedi one would think there is space for inner conflict or at least flashbacks and conversations with Jedi he once called friends that could offer some insight in his reasons to turn to the dark side.
But there really isn't anything to him.
He seems one dimensional and only ever appears to bark orders, rarely gets to do anything cool and at one point let's himself be captured by a dozen or so pirates without having any kind of back-up plan.
But at least he's consistent even when it's consistent disappointment.

Grivious meanwhile is an unstoppable murder machine in one scene and kind of pathethic in another, especially in the first three seasons were he almost feels like a comedy chara ter at times.

And to get back to that word:
My feelings on how the show uses Movie characters aside, inconsistency is actually my really big issue with it.
Inconsistency in quality that is

You have arcs like the ones I described above in the good section and other fun little adventures like ObiWan's time undercover as a bounty hunter and then you have dull and directionless nonsense like the D-Squad arc in season 5 were we follow five droids and a small Alien from setpiece to setpiece and the conflict changes every few minutes.
I don't mind comedic arcs, I don't mind a bit of filler to allow the good stuff to come in bursts and have more impact that way but I sometimes feel like a good two thirds of the show can be skipped and you wouldn't miss anything of importance.
And that's a problem.

Another good example would be the political episodes.
I never really minded the politics in the Prequels seeing them as necessary world building but here they are even more frequent which would be fine if they were interesting but usually it's just about Padme getting kidnapped and messages that are about as deep as the words written on motivational posters.
The one exception which shows the Seperatist side of things is cut short immediately and remains the sole political episode that had a deeper meaning.

The Ugly - I have a bad feeling about this

While the last section was mostly about very general stuff that I felt fall flat or was wasted potential, this is were I speak my mind about different ideas, plots and other stuff I straight up disliked.
This might very well be full of the kind of stuff others really liked about the show but I am not others. I am me.
So keep that in mind.

Let's start with the obvious one.
DARTH. MAUL. SUCKS.
And the fact that he got a brother with the name "Savage Oppress" made my skin crawl.
If I hadn't seen pictures and clips of him back many years ago there would have been a glimmer of hope for me since when we discover Maul we do get to see his most interesting form.
A broken, insane and suffering shell with the looks to go with it that. It surprised me in the best possible way because if you go with the whole "He survived because he was so angry" story you might as well follow that thought through and see how the hatred that kept him alive also completely destroyed him. If that isn't the most Sith thing ever than I don't know what is.
But of course, there are toys to sell and so we got a restored Maul back and to make matters worse we not only paired him with his brother we also lumped him together with the Legion of Neckbeard favourites: Mandalorians.

I can not tell you how happy I was that the Mandalorian Show didn't end up being an absolute "cool guy" Edgefest.
Because I know Mandalorian stories often times are, be that in games or some of those then-EU/ now-Legends books I read.
And the Mandalorians we get in the Clone Wars are the perfect example of just that.
The Deathwatch to be mors specific.
The name alone gives me the creeps and the Darksaber that looks like a 15 year old Anime nerds wet-dream certainly didn't help.
While I liked the pacifistic way of the Dutchess and Mandalore in theory it was never an interesting place in the show nor was her love story with ObiWan all that engaging so it was obvious that the "cool kids" would take over in time and in the end they actually did so with the only other ones as edgy as them.
Red and Yellow Maul as I like to call them.

While the story behind how they did it and them betraying each other was actually fine enough it wasn't until Palpatine crashed the party and killed yellow Maul that I managed to get any enjoyment out of it.
I am ware I have to watch either Season 7 in a month or start watching Rebels to see where things go from here but I quite frankly don't care.
For this article at the very least, none of that matters.

One more thing I want to talk about is something that wasn't pulled off badly or anything I just reject the concept:
I am talking about something I already disliked in the books:
The constant overexplaining of the Force.
I didn't really mind it as a kid but I now see why the whole midichlorian thing wasn't a very popular idea back in the day,
And what's worse is that the Show insists on over-explaining the force further, putting it in categories, tying it to certain places and god-like beings.
As much as I enjoyed seeing more Qui-Gon it came at a price.
I didn't enjoy the story of the brother, the sister, father and their macguffin dagger and certainly I didn't enjoy Yoda's trials and encounters with Darth Bane or those five weird masked beings.
And even the Padawan trials and lightsaber construction fall into that category for me although I found these to be a bit more agreeable and at least the first episodes of that arc was pretty fun.

In Conclusion

There is a lot to like about Star Wars the Clone Wars and when it's good it is REALLY good but there is a lot of forgettable nonsense happening.
Between arcs I tried and failed to get invested in, Battle Droids that are consistently incredible unfunny, catchphrases being thrown around like they are going out of fashion, nostalgia callbacks and iconography that, unlike in The Force Awakens, feel incredibly empty and serve no purpose and wasting many characters who just straight up deserve better it's by no means flawless.
Many say it kind of redeems the Prequels but I am not of the opinion that that's a) needed and b) a thing they really do.
With the exception of showing Anakin and the Clones in a more heroic light it often feels like the Clone Wars co-exist next to the Movies rather than tying into them.
Next time I watch revenge of the Sith I would be very surprised if I felt more about Kit Fisto dying than I have done up until now.
Next time I watch revenge of the Sith I'll not be under the impression that Anakin's turn to the dark side feels any less sudden. If anything, him killing a bunch of children five minutes later will feel more out of nowhere.

Don't mistake my intentions, this article isn't intended as take-down of sorts.
I enjoyed the show just fine.
It's mostly just that "fine" with good to great parts inbetween but also weighed down by a lot of "meh".
But generally speaking it has developed in a positive way over the years and I'm curious to see how much season 7 will affect my overall opinion.
I certainly hope so it will do so in a positive way because, contrary to popular believe, mostly among my friends, I get lot more out of liking stuff than I do out of disliking stuff and with that said I hope Clone Wars lives long and pros...erm...I mean may the force be with the final season of the Show.

All we can do know is abwarten und tee trinken which is a german phrase that translates to wait and drink tea and it doesn't mean more than wait and see but I wanted to use this gif in the end so now you had to learn some german for context.

That's it folks!

Fire Emblem: Three Houses - Ranking Campaigns & Characters

Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Ranking the Campaigns and the characters

So I liked Radiant Dawn and Awakening a lot and even Fates was far from being a truelly bad game but none of them really came all that close to being as good as Path of Radiance which was my entry into the series.
Enter Three Houses, the newest installment of the series and the first Home console title since the Nintendo Wii.
And. It. Rocks.

I'm not gonna review the game, not "really" at least. Instead I'll take a look at the the 4 different Campaigns (well...3.5) and all the characters (except only the students) and rank them because that's the cool thing to do on the internet and because I don't have to keep out the spoilery stuff.

- - SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT - -

Without further ado, lets start with:

The Campaigns

4) The Black Eagles / Adrestian Empire

Judging from online statistics, it's far and beyond the campaign most players chose first which doesn't surprise me given they stand out with a female lead and a couple of cool designs.

And it isn't like Eagles have the weakest roster out of the three, far from it, but given that you can recruit most characters into your House no matter which one you choose it's only Hubert and Edelgard who are limited to this route and I'm not a big fan of either.

Edel especially is a character I thought would come off much better in her own route than in others because she's the Villain in every single route except this... but is she even the Hero here?
Even with the Church being turned up from "somewhat suspicious" to "controlled by an insane woman" kind of enemy in this route only it feels like you are playing the bad guys here.
From the first few seconds after you choose this path midway through the Campaign something feels off.
Byleth just grins smugly at Rhea after siding with Edelgard for... not really all that many reasons at this point in the story, later on almost every Student that's gone with you will mention that they are just here because they trust YOU, all the former Students and Colleagues you will have to fight and kill after your side started a continent wide war will question your decision (duh), you are essentially okay with teaming up with the baddest of bad guys (who were the ones turning Edelgards live into a living hell and who actually were the ones who created what she hates and wants to see gone in the first place) in the game who killed your father on the vague promise that Edelgard doesn't like them either (and by the end, there is no proof she ever manages to get rid of them), blatant lies from the new Emporer regarding the real backstory of Nemesis and his 10 Elites or when she blamed the Church for bombing a Stronghold they never bombed, the lack of the battle of Gronder Fields which is a big deal in every other route and was all over the trailers and lastly the fact that this campaign is by far the shortest.

All things considered it feels like a "What if" Storyline rather than something that was meant to be seen the same way as the other paths and Edel is not nearly as convincing as a Heroine as she is as a Villain, especially since Dimitri and Claude on the opposing sides are presented as nothing but good guys throughout.
Dimitri comes off almost more heroic than on his own route since the whole Storyline where he's captured and sentenced to death which transforms him into a bloodthirsty beast for a while, is completely missing and lastly: None of them use Demonic beasts by transforming their Soldiers into them (with one exception were it made a lot of sense plot wise).

On the other hand it's those things that still make the route worthwhile since the interactions with characters outside your team are really intriguing, especially when you have recruited people from other houses who now fight their own friends and family.
Ingrid's and Dimitri's reaction to having to fight Felix (and Sylvain in Ingrid's case) really stand out to me.

3) Black Eagles / Church of Seiros

For most of the Black Eagles Members this just feels right and their explanations as to why they are here just sound more convincing and "in character", especially for the likes of Ferdinand and Petra.

What's pretty nice here is that you aren't at war with everyone else. The Alliance even helps you in secret, the Kingdom would like to join forces with you and your opponents are really just the Empire and Those who slither in the dark uuuuntil the game throws one last level into your face were Rhea suddenly is unable to control her Dragon side and you have to slaughter what feels like half the Order.
It feels tacked on and unnecessary but at least it gives you the nicest day of free roaming the monastery where everyone thinks you are done fighting. Having played two Campaigns before I started this one I knew this couldn't be the end yet (since I was still able to freeroam after all) but for a moment it was just really nice.

I'm a bit disappointed you don't get to participate in one way or the other on the side of either the Alliance or the Kingdom in Gronder Fields especially since it's followed up by a dream sequence that leads nowhere but all in all it's just a really satisfying route to play even though Seteth takes over the role of the Co-Main character which isn't exactly a great fit.

2) Blue Lions / Kingdom of Faerghus

Other than the other routes you barely delve into the lore and overarching backstory of the game, instead it's very focused on the characters and their relationships and personal pasts.
The tragedy of Duscur, Dimitri's childhood friendship with Edelgard and how the betrayal affected him, Dimitri's personal demons born from what happened in Duscur, edelgards declaration of war after being revealed to be the Flame Emperor, capture by his own Kingdom, the loss (or not) of his best friend and how he eventually overcomes it.

Sure focusing on him during his Edgelord phase could be very cringy all things considered but the fact that everyone but him considers it to be an actual problem and that he gets back to his true self make for an interesting development.

We never get to the point were we have to fight those who slither in the dark (well we do but we kill Thalus without knowing who he is) or a crazed Rhea in dragon form.
It's just a well written crew of people, the best house by the way bar none, overcoming hardship and eventually beating the Empire.
The Ending is also the one that has by far the least casualties since it's really just the Empire that gets in the way. No Nemesis Army killing everyone, no dragon Rhea going insane, those who slither in the dark dealt with without even revealing themselves as what they were, etc.

1) Golden Deer/ Lancaster Alliance

Basically the better version of the Church Route, the Golden Deer Route feels much the same in terms of the kind of levels you'll play and the reveals that take place troughout.
Except you learn even more here, including were the legendary weapons come from and how fucked up those who slither in the dark truelly are. (Killing someone with the bones of their relatives is pretty metal but not the kind of thing a Hero would do, take note Edel).

But really this is first and foremost Claude's story. While the majority of the Golden Deer House Characters just aren't terribly interesting or cool (with exceptions) Claude very much is.
He's a Jokester and a master marksman, a capable leader and an awfully good guy all around.
Especially since his dream about connecting people and tearing down walls make him the kind of  Hero we need in Stories in 2019.

Furthermore he gets the most Cutscenes out of all the routes and the last two are just straight up badass.
Even the Ending, while also a bit tacked on, is just a whole lot of fun. Taking down Zombie Nemesis and his 10 elites beats Rhea or Demon-Edelgard any day as far as final fights go.




And now let's do the same thing for ...

The Characters:

(I actually used a ranking tool for this because doing it manually was already a pain with my Mass Effect Character List.)

25 - Flayn

Your average nice and polite "cute" anime girly. Hard pass.
What makes matters worse is that you'll have her among your team no matter what, if only temporary in one case.
While her backstory with Seiros and Seteth is intriguing it somehow doesn't make her more interesting, it just makes her part of an interesting sub plot.

24 - Caspar

Your average overly enthusiastic good boy. Hard pass once more.
Caspar, much like Flayn for that matter, is always the most annoying person around in every single cutscene. The only reason he doesn't get the last spot is that I enjoyed his interactions with Bernadetta.

23 - Ignatz
His shared backstory with Raphael is pretty cool and ties into the larger political powerplay of the Lancaster Alliance as is the conflict between his own goals and those of his Family.

Apart from that I keep forgetting he exists.

22 - Hilda
The sort of bitchy, sort of not, sort of egoistic, sort of not archetype just isn't my cup of tea. And I don't really like the J-Pop Star look much either. But it would be unfair to dismiss that she is reasonably complex as a character and Claude's line if she is killed in the Black Eagle Campaign lamenting the fact that she didn't fall back as he had expected is the perfect example to show that she was a better person than most think. Stiiiiiill she often annoyed me.

21 - Lorenz
Much like Hilda, probably even more so, he ends up being a better person than one would think and his sort of rivalry with Claude given their roles in the Alliance was certainly fun but looking back there were more instances of him annoying me than those that intriguid me.

20 - Mercedes
Her soft-spoken voice is a bit too over the top but for a character that is a stereotype I usually don't like, namely the overly gentle soul, I found myself surprised on more than one occasion to how much I enjoyed her support conversations with many of the other Blue Lions, especially Annette.

19 - Marianna
The games resident Emo hides a pretty cool backstory that comes with a great paralogue quest. Also: She gets over her constant despair over time. Buuut for me it's too little too late.

18 - Hubert
I never felt bad for having to kill him as he is a nasty bastard but that's exactly what makes him stand out among the rest . He's dirt and he knows it. I do like that he reveals the Location of those who slither in the dark. One last noble (and probably first) noble deed.

17 - Linhardt
I actually found his constant sleepyness to be somewhat tiring... get it?...oh well.
But it was the person that came to light when he wasn't just about to run off to sleep which I found interesting. A calm, calculating mind that doesn't fall into the trap of being socially awkward because scientists are nerds.

16 - Annette
The "girliest" girl in the Blue Lions house is really just that: A girl. Annette feels like a believable person, has a kinda cute friendship with Mercedes and can be excited without being annoying. And her backstory with her dick of a father (who is still kinda cool) adds so much more to whats already there.

15 - Edelgard
Yeah, yeah. Keep your pitchfork, I've got my own.
If you have read this far it shouldn't come as a surprise that Edel won't make it in my "Favourite FE Characters ever" list.
I really do like her as a Villain but it was her own route (and to a lesser extent, her fanboys and girls all over the internet) that soured me on her.
Her reasons for attacking the Church are flimsy, her reasons to team up with her real enemy even worse. But I can live with her just being misguided as many great Villains are.
However her own route is trying to portray her as a Hero except when it's not.
She's shown using those around her and twisting the truth to achieve her goals being all ruthless, except when she's not.
It kind of feels like Nintendo realised too late that Fans would want to side with her to the end so they threw another path in there hence she feels very inconsistent rather than complex.

14 - Ferdinand
If you had told me at the beginning that I would end up liking Ferdie as much as I did I wouldn't have believed you but the five year skip really worked wonders. There are still signs of the arrogant brat that was a student of the academy but he grows up to be a decent guy all things considered, especially in the Church route. Also: That long hair after the skip makes him look hella badass.

13 - Ashe
The Blue Lions nice guy (not the internet kind if nice guy M'Lady) is one hell of a bad unit gameplay wise from my experience. But hey that's not really what this list is all about.
Ashe is a decent character from the getgo, from his backstory to his ambitions it's all just pretty darn alright. However I very much enjoyed his interactions and reaction to and about his foster-father who is one of the earliest enemies in the game and seemingly hellbent on killing Arch Bishop Rhea.
Despite having to fight against him and taking this duty seriously he vows to be the kind of men he knew his foster father was or at the very least how he perceived him. That's just neat all around, ain't it?

12 - Bernadetta
From the beginning I didn't really know whether I thought Bernie was either super annoying or super funny and I couldn't make up my mind for a long time. But I tell you what she never was: Boring.
While still over the top, her backstory explains her behaviour as well as possibly and the voice acting is so on point that I couldn't help but start to laugh eventually.

11 - Lysithea
A backstory much like that of Edelgard it's Lysithea's personality that's just much more fun.
Being the youngest student she hates being treated like a kid, despite very much still acting like one at times. But she's one badass kid with loads of interesting support conversations.
Her A rank support with Edelgard was a bit disappointing given all the hype I've seen surrounding it.
Yes it's the only one where she ends up living longer (so I assume) and yes I like that this possibility exists but uhm... her sudden enthusiasm in supporting the one who is ALLIED TO THE PEOPLE WHO TORTURED HER AS A CHILD just feels off somehow.

10 - Ingrid
The resident watchdog among the group of old friends that are the heart of the Blue Lions House, Ingrid is just one cool Lady who wants to become a Knight yet she knows that she'll have to just marry some noble because that's just the world she lives in.
Overcoming this idea (and her racism towards Duscur if her support with Dedue is high enough) make her a kickass woman with just enough character development to crack the top ten.

9 - Raphael
Okay so I can hardly argue with character complexity here but I don't have to. A powerhouse in fights, Raphael is just the perfect example of the dumb but well meaning brute archetype and he made me laugh a lot. Next.

8 - Leonie
Okay let's get that out of the way: Leonie should be the Golden Deer's Archer. Not just the Lance Knight who also shoots arrows every now and then. Half of her supports are about archery, she's the only character to wear dedicated archer gloves and the teams actual archer can't see without glasses.
Let. That. Sink. In.
With that out of the way: Leonie is the Tomboy with Mercenary dreams who looks up to a heroic character. That's way up my alley. Also: Her paralogue mission is hilarious.

7 - Dedue
Dedue, who is at first glance nothing more than the average stoic Bodyguard type, somehow has some of the coolest scenes in each and every Campaign. His support conversation are all throughout good stuff and his reasons to stick with Dimitri just sound really believable.

6 - Dorothea
Doro is just one of the most interesting and fun characters from the getgo. It doesn't take long to see the person under all the smiling and flirting and while she openly admits to just planning to find someone to marry who can keep her safe and fed into her older years she doesn't really come off as cold and calculating since she's just way too nice... when she isn't being all sassy that is.
After the timeskip she is one of those who yearns for peace the most and is gutted about the fact she is forced to fight old friends. Her conversation with Ferdie when they fight on the bridge is just heart shattering stuff.

5 - Dimitri
From everyones favourite son in law to a man barely sane enough to even breath to a humble and reasonable King trying to redeem himself, Dimitri grows from someone who seems to be the most boring house leader at first glance to someone you really root for.
His childhood friendship with Felix, Sylvain and Ingrid is the core of the Blue Lions, his childhood friendship with Edelgard is the core of his entire Campaign which has a really nice pay off.
Betrayal, Redemption, drama, death, love. His story has it all and affects the other House Members more than any other House Leaders story does and his last stand in the Empire Campaign is just really cool.
Shame he dies off screen in 2/4 Campaigns.

4 - Sylvain
Another example of someone who is so much more than he seems to be.
Sylvain is the worst kind of Womanizer. He's also a man with a heart of gold, much smarter than one would expect, a good friend for everyone who needs one, a guy who thinks very critically about crests and nobility and a guy I'd just like to hangout with, really.

3 - Claude
Far and beyond the breakout start among the House Leaders. Even though he has what I'd argue is the worst support cast, a role in the story that makes him seem like an afterthought to some of they keyplayers in the other factions and has my least favourite paralogue mission (out of those I played) his inquisitive nature reveals the most details about the continents lore, his conversations, be that support or not, are always either interesting, entertaining or both and his relationship with the Magister feels the closest.
To Dimitri Byleth is a mentor, to Edelgard they are either a beloved tool or a sort of close ally but to Claude, they are just the best fucking friend in Fodlan.

2 - Petra
That girl is just the most charming and adorable person in the entire game. Petra is a fish out of water who bravely faces enemies, a foreign culture way different to her own and ... language barriers.
Never before have I encountered a character in Fire Emblem games who made me go "aaaaawww" every time she opened her mouth without being dumb, silly or even naive.
Petra is smart and self sufficient but also caring and inquisitive, determined to lead her own people one day. I couldn't help but feel that deciding to go against the empire felt much more in character for her just as it did for Ferdinand (and Dorothea to an extent) given that she is basically a hostage in the beginning but that doesn't change that I just really like her no matter which campaign I chose.

1 - Felix
The brooding lone wolf whose main interest is getting harder, better, faster, stronger is a character I liked from the beginning. It requieres a bit of digging but his support conversations with pretty much anyone shine a new light on him, especially those that deal with his past as a much more open hearted kid until the thing happened that also changed Dimitri, except Felix never bothered to hide it.
What really made me put him up on the very top was a conversation that only occurs when you recruit him on the Golden Deer Route. Prior to that he spends most of his time badmouthing Dimitri because he knows from the start what's hiding underneath.
However after Dimitri's death, Felix is beyond gutted when you talk to him, lamenting the fact that he couldn't help the person who used to be his best friend so long ago.
Also: If you play a female Byleth and romance the guy you just get the best Ending possible.
Just two badasses in love who spend the coming years duelling each other with smiles on their faces.
True Love, right there.



So yeah: That's it! Do you agree? Ah who am I kidding, chances are you really, really don't if the online statistic are anything to go by. But hey, it's my list. You are very welcome to make your own ;)