To make it more confusing, Felicia's hair alternates between pink and orange for me. At times I think it's more of a peach color if anything.
I actually agree with Mikoto; she's such a driving force in the story, and even to other characters (Yukimura comes to mind), but really, I never got that disconnect.
I get the dynamic of his foster siblings caring for him and the confusing he (I played male) felt over returning to Hoshido and discovering his true family.
And I felt each choice was weighty and interesting for Corrin. I can't wait to see what the neutral path is like; but I'm busy with other games at the moment.
The only problem I have with it is the cop-out that the Hoshidan siblings aren't his true family either. It's just an excuse so you can ship the avatar with any of them, Nohr or Hoshido without fear of incest.
It makes sense that they are the children of the Hoshidan King's first wife, and Mikoto just wed in after and never added to the family... but, I think the story would work better if they were his biological family vs his emotional family.
And yeah; all paths are basically the same one, just backwards and forwards, but that's forgivable from a story standpoint at least. You have to transverse the maps in some way.
Have you played all 3, by chance? I'm not sure if Lillith's death in Revelations is best, but while I didn't really care myself, I did get that she had a huge attachment to Corrin, hence why she saved him early on. So those flaws you have worked for me at least.
Oh, man, don't tell me that; that a key element of it is just DLC. That's the one thing I hate about FE; in any form... they love DLC. The worst aspect of gaming these days.
Do you think they really cut out a story beat just to put it behind a paywall? Does it impact the story that much?
The character in Fates feel more like real people you have to read into, which I like (Kagero was very bland to me at first until I went through all her support and finally began to understand her, for example) but Awakening characters pop a bit more, even from the start.
You can literally tell who everyone is based solely on their character designs and even something as basic as what they say in a shop when selling their items.
Kellam comes to mind "Go ahead, sell my life..."