Golden Deer vs Blue Lions route
I did my first playthrough on Golden Deer, and I just finished my second playthrough, this time on Blue Lions. And while they both have good and bad points, I have a couple of major problems with the Blue Lions route. Obviously, there will be spoilers past here.
First, I didn't feel like a main character. In the Golden Deer route, I felt like Claude and Byleth were equals, like the story revolved equally around both our efforts, and we were both equal in decision making.
In the Blue Lions route, I felt like Byleth existed to be an emotional crutch for Dimitri. None of the story points focused on Byleth. We discovered none of the things about myself that I'd discovered on the Golden Deer route. I feel like there could have been a better balance; as it was, I feel like a sidekick. I felt more like a therapist than a professor and main character.
Second (and related to that point), all the things about the church and TWSITD were completely left out of this route. If felt like a giant chunk of the story was just missing entirely, left unfinished and incomplete.
All in all, while I appreciate the emotional sucker punches that came with the Blue Lions route, it was a bit frustrating, to say the least. I think I'm going to do another Golden Deer playthrough, as from what I'm hearing about the Black Eagles paths, they're not any better in balance than Blue Lions.
Also, the final battle with Edelgard was absolute bullshit on Blue Lions route. Those mages could nuke you from halfway across the fucking nap, not to mention demon Edelgard lobbing magic loogies from the fucking outfield. Nothing like getting demon splooge on you when you're four steps into the room.