Part 5: Queen Mikoto's Love

[@Mekkkah]

Your Kaze seems to think he's Kagero.

[@GobaGNon]

Can I just say how incredibly appealing these character popups are? Even just looking at their bases and growths has become one of my favorite parts of these episodes because they’re absolute eye candy. When you made them you hit the nail directly on the head and I want you to know it’s appreciated

[@xynix1549]

this ^! as a graphic designer this really moves me; both zoran's effort and eye to make this with such high quality, and your appreciation for the interface just really warm my heart.

[@alraunejuno1285]

Ah yes the grind azura to level 40 and have her nuke the entire game chapter

[@captaincringe9312]

Excelblem strats

[@theleftfootedsultan]

As a turncount, this chapter was… replaceable.

[@asmontosborne3111]

I mean, Inspiring Song is nice, but I hate spending 60 turns training her every time I replay Ch. 5.

[@cartooncritic7045]

Aka: The Coward's Strategy.

[@theleftfootedsultan]

@@cartooncritic7045 Hey, it takes guts to grind for 2400 turns.

[@theleftfootedsultan]

Aw, why can’t Ryoma see that the enemies are just called “Invader” and use the Vallite generic portraits? The whole war could have been avoided…

[@quinnlee-miller9792]

That costs 20 dollars and your sanity

[@Zoran501]

the power-up theme in this game kinda slaps

[@LeoWell303]

If you're referring to Those Who Visit, then I agree 10 billion percent.

[@OgreManGaming]

I kind of love the idea that Takumi was there the entire time, since he shows up in the cutscenes before and after the battle, but he just didn’t care to participate in the chapter.

[@maverick5169]

He's probably like "She's a dragon? Fuck no, I'm out"

[@asmontosborne3111]

@@maverick5169 You can say many things about Takumi, but he IS very relatable.

[@maverick5169]

@@asmontosborne3111 I always thought that Takumi has the most realistic approach in such a set-up. Corrin would have been a spy disguised as the child of Mikoto, or even brainwashed. It's not a stretch considering that Nohr can manipulate the dead

[@asmontosborne3111]

@@maverick5169 I know right? People like to meme about betrayal, but (mind manipulation aside) I feel like he is one of the most realistic characters in Fates (and they say Fates characters are gimmicky and one-note, which I really disagree with for the most part).

[@renren47618]

@@asmontosborne3111 People say this about Fates but in 99% of the games but Jugdral and Tellius, most of the cast is also kind of one note except a few ones And in older games, a lot of the character don't even have personality (Like Molder or Will)

[@azurethescaletipper210]

Shoutouts to the “near death” theme that plays for emphasizing such a thing. However, strategy and guard gauges simply make it extra flavor for the generally stressful situation of the chapter. Also, once again, there were not that much changes to the script in this chapter. On a slightly unrelated note referring to the game itself and not the hack, one would think on retrospect that Takumi would have more screen time in the first five chapters considering his relevance in Conquest.

[@cartooncritic7045]

I almost want to say that's why they compensate by making him the most recurring boss in the game.

[@marionberries]

It's incredible how many tiny changes and improvements were still to be made over the Roots of Fate series' version of this chapter you did. Serves to show how much variance in choices there are, which should be a given considering it's a strategy game, but something I often forget when watching LTCs and your former videos where the gameplay is impeccably planned out. It's something an average improv player like myself loves to see but hates to compare to. More than anything your Fates videos have offered a fresh perspective into the combat system that has made me pick it up again. Really excited to see the rest of the series, however long it may take!

[@mr.krustykrust]

Ok but why does that cutscene where Corrin turns into the feral dragon look so clean in HD

[@Zakuzelo]

For a brief, beautiful moment, Fates turned into Asura's Wrath.

[@valemontgomery9401]

Interesting, the swordsman's "death" quote is different. He's now surprised at how strong Corrin is rather than just laughing cryptically.

[@PeevedLatias]

This is a really fun map. I don't care for much of the introductory chapters of this game, but this is a fun puzzle map.

[@Zoran501]

Agreed. The fast strats are pretty cool too, and I don’t always feel that way about those

[@jerry3115]

I think the ending cutscene of this chapter is when everyone knew that the story was gonna be a trainwreck

[@unr3markabl393]

I kinda had the first inkling of what awaits us, after we got introduced to the royals of Nohr

[@jerry3115]

@@unr3markabl393 yeah, but after this, fates fate was sealed

[@toniconge7003]

The sword coming out of the random fountain in the middle of town sure is a plot point... Was the Dragonstone also inside the fountain?

[@unr3markabl393]

@@toniconge7003 no azura had it in her pocket just in case some royal went dragon nuts just a bit overexaggerating

[@asmontosborne3111]

Zoran’s videos have this innate ability to make me want more every time I watch them. What would a Zoran playthrough of Birthright Lunatic look like? What kind of classes is he going to go for? Will he make some new choices we could never imagine? So excited to see what’s next: the real run starts next chapter!

[@lanceknightmare]

No clue, though after playing through Lunatic Birthright myself, I started to like the Spear Master Class the best.

[@OgreManGaming]

Ah yes, the map that drove me insane when I was first starting fire emblem. Crazy how seems to me now.

[@thepsyshyster]

Time to say goodbye to mother and end our stay in Hoshido. Yep, we got two chapters to familiarize our second family and their homeland before the Branch of Fate, compared to the three chapters of Nohr, with considerably more time spent with the royal family. I've seen it asserted that the point is for you to either side with the victims of this conflict or the family you love, but that still doesn't excuse how little you really know the Hoshidan royals. Unfortunately, it would be difficult to naturally implement an additional chapter between 4 and 5 given that, unless the map was just sparring with Hoshidans, the only choice of enemies would be more Faceless. There really isn't much to comment on here; most of this chapter is left unchanged. Something from the base game that I and many others dislike is how Corrin's draconic powers are quelled so easily. To see the player character experience the negative effects of dragon blood would've been interesting, but Azura just pulls out a rock from her pocket and quickly attunes it to Corrin. Next time we make a difficult choice to step down the path of Dusk. Looking forward to the next episode!

[@evanherynk5863]

Azura could literally never gain EXP and still be one of the most valuable units.

[@maxechilsemptyspace7184]

Rip Mikoto, nice clear, and excellent video. Looking forward to the start of CQ

[@caiolima6747]

this is so good that I find myself anxious for the next videos. keep them coming!

[@evancarson1895]

I accidentally got Kaze killed on my most recent branch of Fate run, and I did not realize that he does not come back in this chapter cause I havent done branch of fate in so long. I managed to beat it, and all it took was leading Rinkah to her death as a lamb to the slaughter, and a w h o l e lotta kiting around rubble

[@skeletor959]

Zoran, I love and appreciate you. Thank you for slowing down the text and for all the effort you put into your series

[@miahmagick]

I'd hold my breath in anticipation for the next episode, but that seems ill advised. :D Still, watching this gives me all sort of ideas on how to not use the same formula for this chapter I always did prior, as it was the first one I discovered that "worked".

[@fullmetalaltergeist6152]

Thoughts on trading Sakura's Festal to Kaze? Since it'll show up in convoy after route split, so you could give it to Elise with some careful positioning in Ch 7 to give her some potential longrange healing.

[@quinnlee-miller9792]

Can't do that unfortunately, it won't transfer over. The only items that do are the Vuln, Concoction, HP Tonic and Goddess Icon. Corrins personal weapons stay, and Kaze has whatever he gets at his start. Felicia's heal staff gets replaced so make sure to use it all up for free EXP

[@JimSmith-te9mv]

We are getting ever closer to the route split and some of my favorite early chapters in a fire emblem game! Keep up the awesome work!

[@maverick5169]

I like to use the broken yato pillar to have Kaze body-block the mages and the mercenaries using both auras. A combined effort from Kaze(or Rinkah if you are playing Br/Rev or doing a girls only run), Corrin and Azura is enough to defeat them and fight the reinforcements without running away in the top spot. Azura can even have some combat herself by attacking a mage. Speaking of Azura, she is my favorite shlock unit. Sure, refreshing is pretty cool and all but her Dimitri-Like offensive growth on a physical class are just more fun. The though of this slim woman making more damage than war veterans like Rinkah, Saizo or Selena is hilarious. And now it's time for Takumi to go full Arycelle on us for 20 chapters. Yay

[@dwaynesmith8300]

Kinshi Knight Azura goes HARD

[@maverick5169]

@@dwaynesmith8300 But what about Berserker Azura tho?

[@toniconge7003]

Damn Kaze really be popping off! I never really fully looked at how high Corrin's stats are in this stage but then I think its weird how in this power up state the game throws enemies specifically designed to counter this form not letting you get the sterotypical video game power up fantasy. While at the same time Corrin's dragon form does destroy the boss that Ryoma, an extremely strong character, had a hard time fighting working towards that cool power up idea. Massive misplay Zoran forgot to have Azura spam "sing/end turn" for 200 turns so she could maximize her exp gains. Watching her and Rinka do 1 damage to that Mercancy was far more entertaining though. Far as Fate's plot goes why is the Yato inside the fountain?

[@bluevestedguy]

Thanks for slowing down the text!

[@MarceloKatayama]

Kaze looking pretty good.

[@LeoWell303]

I know those games don't exactly do the best job of utilizing Fates' amazing mechanics, but I'd love to see how you would play through Birthright and Revelation, what with the different casts and map designs. It's a shame that Rev's unit balance is so bad though, otherwise it'd be my favorite route.

[@SvanEsch123]

Two more chapters until we get Arthur!

[@SorenToKeiran-Murasaki]

And seven more chapters until we get Peri!

[@wooperupa]

For Justice!

[@drew_gon1617]

I’ll admit, normally on this map I do grind up Azura, but this time I decided to try and grind Sakura’s instead, I am going conquest so it didn’t matter but just in case, anyway! I literally got her to heal Kaze up enough times to where she was one heal away from moving up a rank… and she still is because Corrin accidentally hit the crit and ended the chapter immediately lmao, i’m not too bothered but like damn, I will always be cursed with that knowledge💕

[@lanceknightmare]

I played this level on Lunatic. The only reliable way for me to beat the level was to feed experience to Kaze prior to this level. I often found it less of a time sink to just start the game over if I forgot to do this. I only played Birthright so only these first five levels will be familiar to me.

[@lanceknightmare]

I think you meant to say resistance benchmarks not growths. A benchmark is the required number needed for the stat to be useful at x level. If an enemy has 40 attack while using magic and you have 14 resistance/40 hit-points assuming you have enough luck to avoid critical hits and enough speed not to get doubled you will be taking 26 damage out of your 40 hit-points. This is an example of a character who can safely take 1 hit. If you have 14 resistance/30 hit-points versus 40 magic damage, then you would be taking 26 damage out of your 30 hit-points. This would be a case where your character can still safely take 1 hit, though is in danger of not being able to for many more levels.

[@yes1667]

This isn't related to Conquest but I remember seeing a comment you made along the lines of Rinkah being an underrated unit and in a run you did you made her really good. I was just wondering how the hell you did that, all I remember is that you got her d axes before branch of fate but that's about it. Thank you.

[@cartooncritic7045]

The thing about Rinkah is that she makes for one of the only "tanky" mages as an Oni Chieftain in Birthright, a privilege that many BR units don't have anyway. It's easy to train her more as a magical unit with certain marriages and Friendships and give her the Bolt Axe when the time comes. Fiery Blood also helps make up for her magical offense not being very good in the early stages of this build.

[@GIR177]

Look up the Reddit post "How to train Rinkah into a competent unit without grinding", it really isn't that hard to get her going.

[@GodsJoseph13]

That geam

[@N_IRL]

12:54 I've actually seen him win that duel once. How unlikely is that?

[@double2254]

The good guy Garon mod has done some help to making nohr not look like the villains but it still feels like birthright is the canonical path of the game. The dialog and actions in the chapters of root of fate still point to garon being the villain and that you will choose hoshido. Sadly it is still contrived and pretty dumb of corrin after everything they just went through to then side with nohr. It makes little sense for it to be the case. The mod has improved the plot and I very much enjoy it, from someone who likes the fates plot and believe it has so much potential if properly executed, just they didn’t fix the biggest issue in the prologue to me of why choose nohr?

[@seththetactician6712]

To me I feel like the game wants you to think of it more along the lines of "side with the family you grew up with and raised you/the place with everything and everyone you've ever known, or side with your 'birth family' because they aren't evil like Garon." In that sense, I think it's reasonable to think that Corrin could choose Nohr. Sure Garon is undeniably evil but for one choosing to side with Nohr isn't exactly the same as siding with the bad guys. The early chapters show you that most of the people Corrin knows there are actually quite kind and a truly loving family. Plus as Conquest itself shows, there's nothing stopping you from still taking out Garon or doing good things for both kingdoms just because you choose the side Garon happens be on and Corrin realizes this almost immediately even if they aren't 100% sure how to go about it. Heck a lot of the bad stuff that happens in Conquest has nothing to do with Corrin and is more or less out of their control and they make sure to do good anytime they do have control over the situation. While it would make sense to try and incentivize the player themselves to choose Nohr in the prologue, that's not really necessary from a narrative standpoint, especially because of outside factors like marketing. With all of that in mind I'd say that aspect of the game doesn't really need to changed all too much. If anything I personally was more wondering why the rewrite didn't change Takumi at all or if maybe his character arc would receive any changes later on. For one that whole conversation you have with him at the very end just kinda seems to ignore the fact that he resented you the whole time even at this stage in the game before you do anything bad. This issue is something done a lot better in the drama cd of all things so they could have easily taken from there. He also hated Azura for whatever reason despite the fact that Azura has been with them for years and never did anything wrong (which honestly just makes even less since if you consider the drama cds events). Then in Birthright his personality almost immediately does a 180 of that with him no longer suspecting Corrin or Azura the instant they side with Hoshido (despite the fact that the possibility of them being spies is definitely still there), and him warming up to Zola almost immediately just because Zola took one hit for him. Then in Conquest from my understanding he either A. suddenly was completely taken over and essentially died being forced out of his body the moment the purple flames show up in chapter 23 (or maybe sooner) or B. commits suicide by jumping off the wall in despair and then immediately after that his body is taken control of. Either case makes it still at least a little strange that in the afterlife or whatever he has suddenly come to terms with everything that has happened as well as his own emotions and forgives you entirely and just overall is completely different. Especially if we consider the fact that his hatred towards Nohr, and to a greater extent, Corrin, wasn't even the entirety of his deep seated resentment issues since he still gets possessed by Iago in birthright due to the weakness caused by his inferiority complex and jealousy.

[@double2254]

@@seththetactician6712 more so meant incentivizing the player to choose nohr in the prologue itself, from as far as corrin knows garon tried to kill them and succeeding to kill Gunter on the bottomless abyss (rewrite makes it more ambiguous which I enjoy) and garon is to blame for the massacre of thousands of civilian lives and the death of his mother. After a majorly tragic and emotional trauma corrin felt from finding his mother only to be killed soon after in their arms, I don’t see how corrin would willingly go back to garon. Once corrin sees Xander and the others on the field with a massive army ready to invade only hours after the massacre, why wouldn’t corrin be suspicious of their former family? Either siding with the side who rescued them and are the undeniable victims in the conflict or being emotionally scarred to be unable to pick a side would fit corrin’s emotional stare at the time and how their logic works throughout the stories. There could be a reason for them to choose nohr depending on how the rewrite does chapter 6, going into this corrin is very emotionally unstable so Xander could be able to manipulate her over to his side with some clever speech. Will have to see how it turns out. Side note, this rewrite has done wonders for fates as a while. The small changes and improvements have done a ton to fixing glaring issues in the plot itself. Here’s hoping it can fulfill what it promised and fix the arguably worst plot in fates with conquest as a whole.

[@seththetactician6712]

@Double Even with the massacre and Hans' betrayal, everyone more or less blames Garon directly as the mastermind behind the things that happened. Xander does try and fight Corrin when they refuse to kill Rinkah and Kaze, but that's also a moment where Corrin sees that Leo, Camilla and Elise are willing to defy Garon's orders even despite risk of death in order to make them happy and to keep the family together. And then there's the fact that the Nohrian royals all follow Corrin to the bottomless canyon and save them from the Hoshidan reinforcements, despite being told by Garon that the fortress was abandoned which if anything would be more evidence that they don't trust Garon and had a feeling something would go wrong. Aside from that it's simply not in Corrin's nature to hold ill will and distrust others unless they are very evidently evil and unwilling to change their ways (for example there's allowing shura into the army and the fact that in birthright they still aren't trying to kill any of their family and only care about taking down Garon) and at this point they wouldn't have a single reason to think their siblings are complicit in any of the things that Garon orchestrated and in fact have every reason based on the events of the prologue to trust that their siblings aren't acting on Garons behalf. Even then I think Corrin would need more time to fully take in everything they witnessed in such a short span of time and realistically speaking even if Corrin didn't trust their siblings after that and concluded they were being deceived the entire time, they would probably still be extremely hesitant to betray their family because they still would look back on their time in nohr fondly. It's not so cut and dry as "hoshido good nohr bad therefore I join hoshido" for Corrin. And then to go even further past that, Yukimura explicitly states here that Queen Mikoto realized that there is something darker at work than Garon and Corrin, despite being emotionally overwhelmed, still has the very strong conviction to do things their way despite what the people of the 2 kingdoms think, which is why they show up to chapter 6 begin with. They wanted to stop the fight not escalate it or support a side. Not wanting to choose a side is the most reasonable thing to expect from Corrin and the actual technical canon path. Corrin knows both sides have good people and wants peace between the two kingdoms above all else but also knows that neither side has the experience they have and hate each other needlessly. Even after choosing a side in the other paths, Corrin asks the other side to trust them and withdraw, trying to avoid an actual fight but in reality Corrin obviously knows that by joining either side it makes it much harder to achieve true peace. But going back to the original point Corrin after all of these events also wants answers for everything that happened. They already know Garon is evil but as one may expect in this scenario, they want to hear it straight from the horse's mouth. Something they immediately act on when you do choose nohr and yet they don't get a satisfying answer because they get cut off. At the same time they can't exactly just leave for hoshido after that and even then they probably wouldn't want to because they've made the decision to change things from the inside and possibly find this true evil Yukimura spoke of and Nohr would definitely be a good place to start looking between the two. Once again, I'd say I think they did an adequate job of making it believable that Corrin could realistically do any of the 3 while providing sufficient evidence that without player choice, Corrin would still refuse a side. Obviously the original game writing is pretty bad which is honestly one reason why the conquest choice seems so dumb since Corrin does such a terrible job providing their reasoning to Ryoma after making the choice. Overall it's nowhere close to the worst thing and while it probably could be better but it is not a necessary change to be made in this desperately needed rewrite in my opinion.

[@rainingrotom]

why is the like-dislike ratio so weird?

[@aduo523]

Looks like it's back to normal.

[@lanceknightmare]

I see 238 likes and the dislikes seem to be disabled. At 4,226 views that is a lower percentage than average of watchers choosing to like or dislike.