Like yeah, Hardin as a villain is completely outta nowhere. But yeah I consider FE4 the Shadow the Hedgehog of the series essentially because while it had some interesting mechanical ideas on paper, it really feels like the execution made everything just completely more over the top dark and edgier than it needed to be.

And words cannot describe how pissed I was at the end of chapter five. Like, if a DnD campaign is considered absolutely terrible for pulling what happened in Ch5, then Iunno. While the story is kinda a flat improvement/iteration of FE1 (run around, unite the continent, stab an asshole), it really lays on the whole “AH YES LET’S KIDNAP CHILDREN AND FORCE THEM TO MURDER EACH OTHER!” thing obnoxiously thick.