Fin 2

Fin

Scarlet Blaze, after 3,000 years, is complete. As a reverse of my Three Houses playthrough where I did Edelgard's path on Normal and all the others on Hard, I did Edelgard's path on Hard after doing the others on Normal. I personally am not a fan of Edelgard as a character. She was a blatant villain in Three Houses, but Crimson Flower tries to redeem her by making Rhea and Dimitri even worse than her in that route. In this game, I still can't agree with her ideology. On top of that, Chapter 12 is pretty much the exact same scenario as in Golden Wildfire, where we come close to a victory and then suddenly large scale bandit problems happen so cue retreat. I did like the whole "Ferdinand having to deal with his dad" situation in Chapter 13 along with the spectacle of the battle at the Valley of Torment in Chapter 14, but Chapters 15 and 16 coming after it totally ruin the impact of the moment, and like the other routes, it's acted like the whole thing never happens anyway. My problem primarily lies in how similar the general concept of both Scarlet Blaze and the second half of Golden Wildfire are the same. Both are "the church is evil, invade the Kingdom to go kill/"capture" Rhea. Then there was the final cutscene. Edelgard literally didn't get to do a thing. Thales and Rhea ended up taking each other out in the grand finale. It was honestly pretty disappointing.

It's Claude time!

Immaculate One!

Seiros~

Me & Claude! For a new Fodlan!!!

Well, I finished Golden Wildfire. I'm going to be honest, this path's second half is probably even worse than Azure Gleam. Claude joins up with Edelgard and decides "kill Rhea" is a smart idea because of some dubious letter, even though we barely see Rhea or have any evidence as to anything Edelgard is saying about the Central Church is true, but he just rolls with her word and invades the Kingdom. Then there's the matter of "blatantly leave Randolph for dead and not do the same for the person who started the war later in the game," something that is only called out on after Chapter 9 and never again. Generally, this felt like an Edelgard route, where Claude could do no wrong and nobody (aside from Lorenz) calls him out on his BS, only to go along with it anyway. So far, this is almost on Crimson Flower levels of bad writing. Speaking of which, my last route is the Edelgard route, which means more "anti Church of Seiros even though underground mole people with magic superweapons exist."

Azure Gleam is done. Since it's the first path I did, I can't say whether or not it was my favorite, but I did like how Cornelia was basically the antagonist for Part 1 when we dealt with the Kingdom's problems involving the western lords and the Western Church. I managed to recruit Byleth first try, so I got to go through the "experience" of Chapters 15 and 16, which were certainly interesting. The only part I don't really like very much is the ending, because it feels like it leaves too many questions. Sure, at least Dimitri doesn't kill Edelgard this time like in Three Houses, but we just kinda leave her there in the monastery after killing Thales. Speaking of which, I do like how Those Who Slither in the Dark actually have relevance in a Blue Lions plot unlike Three Houses where they were an afterthought and killing Lord Arundel just happened to be convenient enough for Mycen to take over in the final chapter. Golden Wildfire is next on my hitlist, but I'm going to play other stuff for a bit so I don't get burnt out. Apparently, the plot flies off the rails after Chapter 8 in that path.