Fenrir: I count five. But at least one of them has a captain's hat, so it's not that bad.
Okay, time to gush a bit.
Fire Emblem Fates - Playing Conquest route, up to chapter 16, Hard Classic.
Wow, this game's gameplay is ridiculously good so far. Awakening is a fine game, and I have always rolled my eyes at the more extreme hate it gets (not here, mostly), but its gameplay had some big flaws which needed fixing. They are, by and large, fixed. Some of these are fixes to other weaknesses which go much further back. To ennumerate them:
-Pair Up was overpowered as hell. It's not gone, but has evolved into something far more interesting and less random. You can still use pair up, and it still boosts stats (though the stat/10 nonsense is gone, I notice), but it's a defensive option by and large, as paired up characters can not use support-attacks (even with other adjacent characters) nor do they get a the adjacency hit boost. However, to make up for this, you are also invulnerable to enemy support-attacks, and can dual guard... except dual guard is now completely non-random and based on a visible gauge which fills up. Meanwhile, support-attacks are 100% for half damage. The enemies make use of both mechanics. Less random, more strategic.
-Ninja reinforcements are gone. Ding dong, the witch is dead. Can't stress enough how much more enjoyable this makes FE for me. There's no fog or anything either, and the one map I've fought with cleverly changing terrain has the changes happen at the start of your turn.
-Map design is back with a vengeance, and is great. The game does a great job of enemy placement and wakeup ranges to be intereseting there, but more significant is the varied map objectives. And there's dragon vein, which allows for various map-specific commands. And just a great job has been done of making every fight from chapter 8 as individually memorable.
-Enemies have skills, but they're not random, and generally used thoughtfully. Some of them can be really nasty, but the nastiest ones are used sparingly (Counter Archers, Lunge chains).
-Debuffs (1-turn don't move, various ways to lower stats which recover at 1/turn such as shuriken weapons and some skills) are an interesting addition. One of their most desirable effects is that they can wreck a single PC as a long-term tanking unit (and of course you can turn them on enemies in the same way).
-The game uses an exp formula is far more curved, which makes lowmanning less effective, ensures that you will be at roughly the level the game expects, and can even encourage you to rotate PCs between fights for effectiveness (not that I do the latter much, supports still a thing).
-Rescue is back! As a cavalier skill, granted, but its value was missed (and to make up for it being limited, it's of course better, since you get a stat boost rather than a stat penalty for "carrying someone"). There are also two other positioning skills in Shove and Lunge (though I don't have anyone with Shove), the latter letting you swap positions with an enemy as part of an attack.
-While it's far from amazing, Fates' enemy AI is by far the best in the series. It will set up support attacks, knows how to use debuffs effectively, knows to attack with a weaker character first to break a dual guard shield, and finally, won't attack at all if they have 0 displayed hit or damage (and can't debuff in the latter case).
-One convenience is that the game highlights enemies who have weakness-hitting weapons with a red exclamation mark, so the chance that you accidentally move into one of those is reduced. (There's a yellow exclamation mark if your paired up character is the one who would eat a weakness-hit, lest you use Switch at a bad time.)
Weapon durability is not especially missed, since the game has balanced weapons in other ways. I don't even care about Conquest removing skirmishes since I ignored them anyway but if you're the type who can't, hey, Conquest will be that much better for you. (Birthright exists if you want them.)
The game is strategic in the best way and combats at this difficulty are a fun and intense experience. I've died badly due overlooking things (lunge, or forgetting that enemies can use support-attacks, or just the more traditional misjudging enemy range). But otherwise, perhaps more than ever, the game makes you feel like you own your own resets, which is great.
Best FE for gameplay? I'll want to finish the game before saying that, but it's at worst second only to Radiant Dawn. Obviously it also keeps all the nice little conveniences which were present in Awakening.
On another note, the writing is pretty weak (better than FE11-12 but lol) but this isn't really surprising. A shame because the plot setup is good, and when the game hews closer to that it does better. Music's good, at least, and while art hasn't reached Tellius levels it is the best since then, I feel.
