Board 8 > SaveEstelle/LeonhartFour in Different Houses: Far From Houses Edition [SELF]

(+) Yeah! (+)

Ch 11 mission: I had unfortunately spoiled myself early on that Edelgard was the Flame Emperor by looking up voice actors and seeing both characters listed for Tara Platt. Whoops. Anyway, sided with Edelgard despite the fact that she was for some reason working with clearly evil people like Solon and Kronya (which has yet to be explained), and it turns out that Rhea is a dragon.

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One other thing that bothered me about all the revelations over the past few chapters (spoilers for BE Ch. 10&11):

They made it seem like the reason Byleth was emotionless and lacked a personality was because they were separated from Sothis, but then when they join Byleth is still...emotionless and lacks a personality? I felt like that would have been a good opportunity to start actually giving Byleth their own dialogue and not just be a wooded, nodding avatar.

Or maybe I was misunderstanding and the reason they are like that is because they're linked with Sothis at all? I dunno, I feel like nothing was explained very well. I'm assuming more of Byleth's origins get revealed over the course of the rest of the game.
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He does get a little bit more emotional in his battle dialogue as the game goes on. I don't know if it explains it on one of the Black Eagles routes because I haven't done it yet, but Jeralt's journal does seem to imply that whatever Rhea did to Byleth in order to save him stunted his emotions. It seems more like Sothis awakening within him is what "kickstarted" his emotions. Still, it's hard to communicate that sort of growth when you have a silent protagonist, so it doesn't always accomplish its aim in that regard.
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Last page to vote on the poll. Still a chance to affect the outcome!
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FE3H Crimson Flower Chapters 11 and 12 beated.

This will probably end up broken into two posts, one for each chapter. A lot to unpack here.

Chapter 11 Free Time: Hubert was MIA this chapter. Like totally MIA, couldn't even deploy for free day battles. It makes some sense but Edelgard was around and in the last chapter when the knights were gone, Shamir wasn't around for explore activities or the actual mission but could be deployed on free day battles so the discrepancy caught my eye.

Anyway, speaking of Edelgard, chatting with her has her ask us to come with her to the Imperial Capital for an errand, complete with This decision will drastically change the story. We say yes and it turns out her errand is succeeding her father as Emperor. A bit of a nice moment between the two of them and lol at them just shutting up the Prime Minister when he runs in and gets himself fired and arrested.

Chapter 11 Mission: Oh boy. Rhea takes us to a throne and tells us to sit on it and whoa i've seen this plotline before she's trying to make us the lich king. Of course nothing happens and Byleth damn well should know that would be the result given his chat with Sothis. It's weird that the class just assumes the Imperial Army is Flame Emperor affiliated here. My first reaction was maybe in other routes the Flame Emperor is actually present in their getup... but Edelgard isn't here and it's only the Black Eagles shown/talking so it's not like they'd be re-using voice clips from other routes. Edelgard a baller just announcing she gave the order and is the Flame Emperor.

The actual mission itself was simple enough. I rolled right over Edelgard's troops, protected all the Crest Stones, etc. So I'll focus on all this from the narrative side. I think the major problem here is the timing of the choice. You really should have had the Side with Edelgard/Side with Rhea decision before the actual fight. The situation hasn't really changed any before and after in terms of what Byleth knows or even what Rhea is ordering/demanding. So what plays out is you're forced to fight and defeated Edelgard and her forces then you have the option to turn around and side with her. I can only presume it's because they didn't want to make an alternate version of the mission but really just have Rhea bring in a contingent of knights for the ceremony and boom there's your opponent. The other reason I have to assume you're forced to fight Edelgard first is because she probably just straight up wins if you can side with her from the start. She'd have her full force, not be beaten by Byleth, and have Byleth and the class against literally just Rhea. they gotta be favored in that, right?

But also, I feel like Edelgard let things play out like a minute too long. You'd think she'd interrupt the proceedings before Byleth sat on the throne, not after. Like I get the impression Rhea's endgame here is to literally revive Sothis possibly by possession of Byleth. That seems like something Edelgard would want to avoid. I assume she's fairly in-the-know on the myth arc through Team Thales but even Solon didn't seem aware Sothis was in Byleth's head so I don't think they or Edelgard should have expected a failure there.

aaaaanyway, after siding with Edelgard (even Edelgard is surprised and instinctively tries to ask if we're sure before realizing it isn't the time for a philosophical chat), Rhea loses it, declares she'll rip open our chest and tear our heart out (not even a paraphrase that was her threat!) and turns into a dragon. Hubert teleported in right before (I assume he stops you if you decide to kill Edelgard there) and tells us to run. Did we literally run? I thought he teleported us out (and left the class to actually run because he's a jerk) but who knows.

I feel like I may have forgotten stuff but eh, if I did and someone cares they can always ask.
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Chapter 12 "Free Time": After the class affirms they're onboard Edelgard's revolution to free humanity from dragons we are sent to a temporary base/Imperial Army camp. Which is really just a small square room. It makes sense, obviously we can't use the monastery... except when we start viewing some of the supports that are no longer timelocked. Presumably everyone just sneaked in to have slice of life moments before returning. We chat with everyone here (weirdly the teachers/Shamir/Alois are not present here. Like, Shamir was deployed in the Holy Tomb she can't pretend to be undercover at the monastery now!)

Speaking of Supports, Hubert/Shamir's C-Support finally unlocked and omg this is going to be a god-tier support line. Hubert gives Shamir the same "Edelgard likes you now, but if I decide you're a threat I'll kill you" spiel he gives Byleth, but Shamir isn't a silent protagonist and calls him unstable while trolling him the whole time. Anyways, nothing to do but deploy for the Chapter 12 Mission. I was kinda hoping we'd get the monastery back and have a "real" month again but alas this was it.

Chapter 12 Mission: this may have been the most hype fire emblem map i have ever played. The music was great, love how it carried right from the preparation screen. Time to storm the monastery. Like with Chapter 10 the game isn't kidding anyone that the map as presented is the whole story. Seteth, Flayn, and Gilbert are the named deployed to begin with while we have as allied units a guy from Caspar's family and the head of Edelgard's personal guard. Edelgard, Lysithea, and Petra charged down the middle (with Byleth at first) while I sent two other groups down the sides. I had Byleth engage and defeat all 3 named characters here. Seteth and Flayn were particularly tough (convo-wise, not combat) Seteth was pissssssed and Flayn just made me feel bad. Once Flayn went down (Gilbert was still up) the DEATH KNIGHT appears as an allied unit. choo choo hype train. Byleth even goes "!?" and Edelgard's like "uhhhh i know you have so many questions but that'll have to wait, they're cool right now." Once all 3 go down, the doors open and Rhea, Catherine, and Cyril appear.

A running goal of mine was keeping my now 3 named green units alive, which was keeping the pressure on me because they're nuts and would charge without regard to their own lives. Byleth took on Catherine, dodged what probably would have been a fatal combat art from her on enemy phase and counter-killed her. Cyril conveniently flew over to get wrecked by Byleth too (if he hadn't flown all the way to him this wouldn't have worked, I used my 2 Warp Uses to move Byleth around earlier.) Edelgard teamed up with some other units I peeled off to take on two golems. Then Not-Caspar attacked Rhea and thankfully survived the reprisal and then the Death Knight rolled up to her and scored a critical that would have killed her easily but thankfully the "green units can't kill bosses" thing still applies and left her at one HP. Was able to get Byleth and Edelgard convos with her by having Byleth 0 damage her with light magic before Edelgard finished her. Yo Rhea picked up quite a mouth trash talking Byleth and the Edelgard convo was interesting.

then rocks fell and killed byleth or something. five years later sothis reveals she's a lying liar and yells at him to wake up so we do. We meet Edelgard at the monastery and she almost goes tsun at us for disappearing and not initially believing us when we told her we were asleep the whole time. Then the rest of the Black Eagles troll her into a blushing mess saying how Edelgard must be happier than all of them we're back and it was apparent we were her anchor. Hubert says they had no losses but looking at Bernadetta's new look I'm not so sure. Edelgard explains our new goal is to take a bridge so we can defeat Claude's house.
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ahhhhhh i can already see bunches of things i wanted to say but didn't.

Chapter 11 Mission: Edelgard being the Flame Emperor was unfortunately something I had spoiled, and really the only spoiler I was annoyed I encountered. I'd like to think I'd have figured it out between Edelgard going AWOL Chapter 6, Edelgard revealing she has the Crest of Flames, Edelgard admitting to anti-church views, her backstory meshing with Thales telling the Flame Emperor they're his "greatest creation" etc.

Chapter 12: I really liked the scene where Edelgard admits to Byleth her anxiety over the fact that she is about to give an order that will start a war that will engulf Fodlan and cause an untold amount of death and destruction, including civilians inevitably getting caught up in it. She has no illusions about the cost that's going to be incurred trying to free humanity from the church and crest system and it bothers her.
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Edelgard route Chapter 11 and 12 spoilers.
I made Flayn my dancer and gave her my March Ring. She obviously can't give back the Dancer class but she didn't give back the March Ring either when she left. I hope you did better. It's hard to do worse. >_>

I think Edelgard being the Flame Emperor is pretty easy to guess before the reveal. Perhaps too obvious sometimes to the point where it feels like misdirection when it isn't. Like they tend to make a point out of Edelgard disappearing whenever the Flame Emperor shows up.

At one point Byleth is talking with the Flame Emperor and Hubert comes in to distract Byleth so the Flame Emperor could Warp Powder away. I figured there was no way Hubert of all people didn't see the Flame Emperor standing there so it had to be intentional.

IIRC there's also a scene in an earlier chapter where Edelgard gets mad at you if suggest that the Flame Emperor and Solon were connected. She doesn't like Solon's group much. >_>
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Haha, no, Petra is my Dancer and has my March Ring. Flayn had nothing of importance, but also wasn't unequipped or anything either. Probably took a Training or Iron Weapon and a Vulnerary, not sure. And yeah, Flame Emperor clearly was unhappy with Thales/Solon/Kronya in the aftermath of Kronya killing Jeralt and didn't mince words with Thales about it.
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Re: Flame Emperor's identity: I can't speak for BL, but in GD Claude is also off-screen during some of those scenes with them, I guess as some attempt at misdirection. Having done BE first it was weird. >_>

(I also had it spoiled by VAs oops)
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Yeah, I made sure not to look up any VAs until I finished my Blue Lions run, and I'm glad I did.

It becomes pretty obvious who the Flame Emperor is by the time of the reveal during the Blue Lions path, and I say this as someone who's usually terrible at guessing plot twists.
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The writers certainly try to soften the emotional blow of deciding to go Crimson Flower, given what the broad objective is.

Aside from the "Oh yeah, Rhea is a psycho angry dragon that every FE game has to take down" thing, they really ratchet up the Edelgard cutesy moments. Stuff like taking an entire night to come up with "Black Eagle Strike Force" and the likely immediate unlocking of her B Support where she just wants to eat sweets.

CF Byleth / Edelgard has to be one the most pushed FE pairings in awhile. It's up there with Elwood / Ninian.
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I finished the first day of DGS2-3. It's certainly been intriguing so far, and I'm curious to see where they take it from here.

Looks like that's as far as the subs have gotten so far, too, so I guess I'm back to waiting mode.
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Oh, since I've had some time to decompress... and wouldn't be posting 4+ times in a row... >_>

Shadow Dino posted...

Its a poorly written sequence of events.

Yeah sure, church and Rhea are shady as hell, but why protect someone that just attacked you?

Definitely my least favorite part of Crimson Flower.

Chapter 11: The thing is, I don't believe you're intended to believe Edelgard attacked you there. Yes, she was obviously taking aggressive action by marching the Imperial Army into the Holy Tomb, but she clearly tells Byleth and the Black Eagles to stand down and she doesn't want to fight them. Her order to the Imperial Army is also only to attack if they "get in [our] way." Really, the implication I took from all this put together was that Byleth (and the class) obeyed Rhea's order to stop them. It's why I criticized the choice to have the big decision after the fight rather than before. If Byleth decides to listen to Rhea and engage Edelgard and the army... why in the world would he switch sides after? Nothing changed! Rhea was super clear that she wanted Edelgard dead beforehand and Byleth doesn't learn anything different about Edelgard's motives (either he's viewed her supports/paid attention to her chats and has the gist of her grievance against the church and society or he hasn't.) Rhea also hasn't gone dragon yet, she only does that after Byleth defects. Like I dunno, are we supposed to believe that Rhea personally ordering Byleth to execute Edelgard on the spot was what did it? i dunno maybe it's believable byleth is that dumb/naive to not realize that's where rhea was going with this and not "young lady you're in for a whole month of detention." Again, I think the sequence is greatly improved if Rhea had some knights accompany everyone there and you get the Edelgard/Rhea choice before the fight and it changes who your enemies/green units are in the fight.

tl;dr: I agree it was written poorly, but I disagree with how you interpreted it... which itself may be a sign of how poorly written it was!

LordoftheMorons posted...

Ch 11 mission: I had unfortunately spoiled myself early on that Edelgard was the Flame Emperor by looking up voice actors and seeing both characters listed for Tara Platt. Whoops. Anyway, sided with Edelgard despite the fact that she was for some reason working with clearly evil people like Solon and Kronya (which has yet to be explained), and it turns out that Rhea is a dragon.

Chapter 11 + Some speculation involving supports with Lysithea and Hanneman: My working theory on why Edelgard is working with Team Thales is that they're the ones who did the actual work of giving Edelgard the Crest of Flames. Edelgard and Hanneman make it clear in supports that having two Crests isn't supposed to be possible. Edelgard also notes to Lysithea that the only way it could be done is through "blood reconstruction surgery" which is basically torture and all but says she went through it. This matches with Edelgard's backstory. I'm guessing when the major nobles made the Emperor a puppet ruler they turned Edelgard over to Thales's group for Crest Experimentation. It sounds like Team Thales wants to wipe out the church and the way they talk about it, it sounds like they know about them being dragons (possibly how Edelgard knows though she made it sound like if you're high enough a noble you're let in on it.) I'm guessing the plan was to give Edelgard the Crest of Flames so she could use the Sword of the Creator and that's how they all planned to beat Rhea. Byleth appearing sent it way off the rails though.
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aw yeah first vote for FFVIII Remastered and 4th vote overall

it's a sign
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Chapter 12 mission: Oh my god I fucking hate allied units. Had to let Cyril kill Lysithea so that he wouldn't get counterattacked and then killed by the death knight so I could see his unique dialogue with Byleth.

Death knight then proceeded to run up to Rhea while I was waiting to get Byleth to her and crit her. Thank god the game only let her go to 1hp; I let her kill him the next turn. Hope there wasn't any reward for him living!

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Chapter 12 Mission: Not that I can tell. I had all 3 named allies survive and got no reward that I could see. I was disappointed Death Knight/Rhea didn't have a battle convo though, was interested in what that could have been.
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Anyway, finished Ch 12

Had Annette attack Gilbert (sorry, if you didn't want to kill your dad you shouldn't have had unique dialogue!). The named knight dude whose name I've already forgotten almost killed Flayn, but luckily missed and died on the next enemy round. Got Byleth's unique dialogue with all other named units, and Edelgard's with Catherine/Rhea. Hopefully there weren't any others I missed (kinda hard to attack someone with Edelgard or Byleth and have them live! I've mostly been attacking bosses with Edelgard with a rusty bow, (which has very bad accuracy), but she could sometimes kill bosses if she got in two hits even with that.

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Gambits are usually how I try to get unique dialogue with Byleth/Edelgard and want the opponent to survive. Switching Byleth to Nosferatu works sometimes, and did in Chapter 12 for me since it hit for 0 lol. If the opponent has a ranged option you can also have them attack at range when you're locked to melee (or vice versa.)

You did better with dialogue in that mission than me!
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Good thing I wasn't playing on classic! (I usually rewind to save units anyway, but I would have had to rewind multiple turns to fix that one so I just let it slide).

And ah yeah, gambits are a good idea. Kinda weird that they're so weak!

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Timeskip! Current playtime: 59:09...

Ch 13: Apparently Byleth has been asleep for five years. We meet Edelgard at the monastery, and she tells us that the war is at a standstill. Why do we need to take on the Alliance too if they're neutral??

Character redesigns!
Better: Linhardt, Hubert, Dorothea, Bernadetta
Sameish:Caspar
Worse: Edelgard, Petra, Ferdinand

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59 hours holy moly
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tl;dr: I agree it was written poorly, but I disagree with how you interpreted it... which itself may be a sign of how poorly written it was!

Chapter 11

My hot take is that Crimson Flower should have locked in the moment you choose to accompany Edelgard to Enbarr. You change up the story to where she reveals her identity as the Flame Emperor in private and have her call off her Holy Tomb raid because she learns about what Rhea did to Byleth when they were an infant, opting to confront Rhea directly with evidence of baby experimentation.

This gives you a unique chapter 11 where the objective is an escape map to run from angry dragon.

But hey, having to plan out four routes isnt easy, so I can look past a few narrative whiffs here and there.
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The Mana Sword posted...

59 hours holy moly

Yeahhhhh, gonna have to speed way up for playing multiple routes without a large break to be feasible. I think TRE and xp mentioned that they were taking even longer per chapter though...

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It took me 63 hours to get to Chapter 11.
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More Ch 13:

Other house redesigns:
Better: Mercedes, Annette, Lorenz (MUCH better since he was so terrible before), Ignatz, Lysithea, Leonie
Sameish: Felix, Sylvain
Worse: Ashe, Ingrid, Raphael, Marianne

A lot of those are just from the portraits, so it's possible that I'll move a few seeing the full body models. Lame that the adults don't get a redesign. In particular, you'd think that Shamir would change some going from 25 to 30!

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Also: shouldn't Petra basically be talking like a native of Fodlan after five years?

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LordoftheMorons posted...

Also: shouldn't Petra basically be talking like a native of Fodlan after five years?

Spoilers up to the timeskip.
They would have to have two sets of scripts for some of her supports if they did that. >_>
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Team Rocket Elite posted...

Spoilers up to the timeskip.
They would have to have two sets of scripts for some of her supports if they did that. >_>

They could have just done it for the timeskip-locked ones and ignored the inconsistency. Pretty sure a lot of the other pre-skip supports make a lot less sense in the context of a war than in school anyway!

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Apparently in the five years since Ch 12, people have finally figured out how to stop losing their junk all over the monastery!

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LordoftheMorons posted...

I think TRE and xp mentioned that they were taking even longer per chapter though...

Let's see... the save I made at the first/only free day in Chapter 13 is... 88:57

get on my level scrubs.

Some of that is idle time to be sure, but lol. On replays I'd 100% turn off battle animation so that would save time.Might skip through any support convos I'd already seen too.
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Support conversations kind of get messed with due to the timeskip anyway.

"Hey, about the last time we talked..."

THAT WAS 5 YEARS AGO
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Adjustment for redesign ratings:
Mercedes is actually worse (though I didn't particularly like her pre-skip design anyway). The worst offenders are Ingrid and Marianne. I also think that Petra was a pretty big downgrade (post-skip is decent, pre-skip was great). Edelgard is pretty much in the same boat.

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Ch 13 mission: Annoying map. Wasn't ready for the fleeing enemies, and two got away. That's not even taking into account Acheron and his guards, who bolted right after I killed one of the other reinforcements (is it possible to kill him?) I also thought that Judith might have unique dialogue with Lorenz, but I guess not. Anyway, the point is that enemies fleeing is a dumb mechanic and shouldn't be used,

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FE3H Crimson Flower Chapter 13 beated.

Free Time: Bah, only one free day although that is technically an improvement over Chapter 12. Someone give the greenhouse keeper a raise, kept my plants from Chapter 11 alive for five years. Oh hey, that one room on 2F as well as the entire 3F opened up finally. If I'd known everyone's motivation would drop to 50% here I wouldn't given a ton of gifts back in Chapter 11! Not-Caspar is an NPC at the monastery now with his little sister. Apparently he's in charge of the place's defense while we're gone. total death flag.

Mission: Before the fight, Hubert actually confirmed most of my theory on why Edelgard is working with Thales's group though I'm not sure why they still are. Flame Emperor even suggested at Remire that if Byleth joined they wouldn't need them anymore.

Huh, difficulty went up a notch here, I had to pay a little attention with my squishier characters for the first time in a while. I wonder what triggers the reinforcements. Edelgard makes it sound timed, but I think they arrived after Turn 2? Not impossible to win by then but yeah. lmao at Acheron taking one turn to watch my army annihilate people and peaceing out. A little mad I couldn't wreck him and his crew for more EXP. Though this was foreshadowed by an NPC at the monastery who talked about him. I assume with Stride and Warp you could do it but not only did I have no interest in rewinding time to prep for that, but I may have needed a full redeploy for that because Marianne (Stride) and Lysithea (Warp) were placed in different starting spots.

Rewound time to prevent one of the guys from fleeing since I realized I could just warp Shamir over there to stop him. The battle forecast had initially shown him engaging Ingrid but it seems if they're in move range of the retreat area that overrides the forecast. Surprised at no boss dialogue with Byleth or Edelgard. Gave Hubert the kill since he's lagging behind the most since he was gone for a while before. Next up we're going straight for the heart of the Alliance to get Claude. Hubert hyping him up too much, we got this.

Starting to get Master Classes now though in some cases I'm close enough to mastering the Advanced Class that I'm keeping them there for the moment. Lysithea unlocked Gremory, Shamir changed to Bow Knight, Felix unlocked Mortal Savant, and Caspar changed to War Master. Against my better judgement I'm letting Edelgard chill in Armored Lord for the moment.
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I've seen a few people diss Ingrid's post-timeskip design, but I'm actually pretty down with it despite preferring long hair in general. Has a good knightly feel to it.

I'd be okay with Edelgard's but I wish it didn't emphasize her chest so much... Also she probably has my favorite pre-timeskip design so any changes are not so great. Can't even revert it with NG+ since she was my first route!
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Yeah, I didn't have a problem with Ingrid. I thought it suited her. Mercedes chopping off her hair was unfortunate. I like the post-timeskip designs and battle quotes better in general for most of the characters.
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https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/77977709

New topic

Last chance to vote in this poll...!
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I'm just glad everything eventually got a vote. It always makes me sad when a poll option goes voteless.
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I don't know if it's considered to be his theme, but the song that plays during Raphael's supports is great
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what are the Vols doing
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this might be the most embarrassing loss for the Vols in my lifetime barring a miracle
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I guess the winner will have to wait for FF8
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well I can watch Mob Psycho 100 in between sessions of FFVIII
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Yooo mob

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I do still have my vote, which I held in case of a tie.
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Don't give dragon quest that satisfaction

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Well, if someone votes in the next two posts, I won't have a choice but to vote.
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Can we transfer my Berseria vote to Mob Psycho 100 for TACTICAL CONSOLIDATION?
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Mewtwo is still a fraud
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