So I decided to replay the games to get at the homosexual options, cause something like that in a Nintendo game just sparks my curiosity as to how well it was handled. That, and I wasn't even aware that gay options existed until after I beat all three paths and then looked them up online.
I mean, the pseudo-dating sim/visual novel aspect of the game is arguably the game's most disappointing aspect overall, because it just isn't very realized and is very out of place, but that's besides the point.
SO there are two options: Niles for Conquest males, and Rhajat for Birthright for females. I'm not gay or anything, but after playing through both paths again to get at them both, Niles is just way better in every way. He's available almost from the onset of the game whereas Rhajat is hidden as she is Hayato's child (who you probably didn't use at all like I did), his personality isn't just "Haha I'm a creeper lawl" like Rhajat is, and his dialogues are actually entertaining. And he's way better looking too, whereas you can tell that Rhajat's been living in a swamp her entire life.
But breezing through both routes against on classic hard, I'm also taking the opportunity to try out new strategies, like heart sealing the MC into a pegasus knight at the start of the game, heart sealing Odin into a Samurai (he's surprising good!), heart sealing Sakura into a Falcon Knight and having her wreck stuff with the Bolt Naginata... Honestly, heart seals are just the best thing in the game, I wish you had access to more than just one or two right at the start of the game, you gotta wait until you upgrade your staff shop.
Maybe I'll do a classic lunatic run of every path. I thought, and still think, classic hard is too easy, and after giving casual lunatic a quick spin just to gauge the difficulty, I was pleasantly surprised to see that it's actually challenging, and not ball-crushingly so! In Awakening, Lunatic was nigh-impossible, completely unfun, and just another example of why that game was such a colossal fuckup, but this seems pretty alright! I'm just hesitant on it because I already know from first hand experience that there are more than a couple chapters that are difficult, but just for extremely cheesy, stupid, unfun reasons that all relate back to the tragically poor design that a great deal of the game apparently had to suffer through during it's development. Will update if I go through with it.