Ayra

One of the previous Famitsu articles mentioned it (the last one I think?). Anyway, I don't think it will be a major issue personally. It will depend on how limited you are with the class-change seals. If they aren't common, you won't be able to unlock that many classes per character. That might hold true in particular to the highest tier (seemingly something higher than advanced); while you might be able to unlock a ton of the lower classes, you might not be able to do so for the higher ones. Plus, the character also has to pass the test. In your example, the character would need to train in: Spear, Flying and Cavalry. That might be viable for lower tier classes (like Cavalier seems to only require a D in riding), but you might be hard-pressed to level up all three for high tier classes, and leave you with little room to train for Authority for better troops. If I'm wrong and all seals are common and it's easy to train many skills very high... I guess it'll be like Shadow Dragon with it's full free reclass system?

That's pretty nice. I prefer digital and I'm definitively buying Three Houses and Mario Maker (not a huge Mario fan, but I've seen some amazing stuff for the first one on youtube), so I might as well take that deal. Astral Chain is a very likely buy too (heavy Nier Automata vibes with mostly the same creators and I adored that game) so I'm considering buying a second set of vouchers too, but I don't really have another Nintendo-published game that interest me enough to risk it yet. Maybe the new Pokemon game (though it's been over a decade since I've played one and I didn't like it much back then), or Link's Awakening (not sure it's going to be a full-priced title). There's games that interest me like Atelier Lulua, but those are third party and are not covered by this promotion. So wait and see I suppose...

That's my take too. Not impossible, but implausible. Before the latest Famitsu update I'd have been more optimistic regarding this, but... That update shows that the Monastery thing is a lot more in-depth than I first though and it makes a time skip (outside of very endgame events) seems unlikely. It's possible that all those mechanisms could be tweaked for a post time-skip non-school environment (like training camps for your army which hopefully wouldn't involve making the Empress pull weeds) or replaced with something else entirely, but... it would mean that this game would be simply gigantic, completely outside the scale of any prior FE game before. I certainly won't complain if the leaks are true (what I read of them anyway), but it feel more like wishful thinking than anything else to me.

I'm kind of worried that the teachers don't have a personal skill on that preview. It's not a confirmation of anything of course, but it does make me slightly less optimistic about their chance of being playable characters. Anyway, besides that, things look promising. The Bernadette/Dorothea image makes me optimistic that supports have been upgraded to full-fledged events with in-game visuals instead of just still pictures. Personal skills are very welcome especially since everyone starts in identical classes. The crest thing has potential. Looking forward to the full scans and translations!

It's about the brown-haired girl that we've seen in multiple trailers in the background that has an unusual face and seemingly doesn't belong to any of the houses.

I personally don't really mind those trees, but I admit it worries me a bit if things like this are going to affect review scores and sales from the more casual audience. I feel the direction they are taking is the correct one; it's just that the implementation isn't quite there yet. If Three Houses sells decently, I'm pretty sure we'll get a considerably better-looking game for the next entry in the series. Awakening -> Fates -> SoV has shown some improvements in the visuals and animations, and I'm expecting an even bigger difference between Three Houses and the next Fire Emblem. Especially since the console itself allows for more growth. I wonder if the troops were the biggest source of problems here? To allow a ton of troops to show on the screen at once, you need to make some concessions elsewhere. In any case, something akin to Xenoblade Chronicles 2 visuals for the next Fire Emblem would be perfect in my opinion. It looks great, environments are stellar, and the characters are very expressive.

Yeah, I dropped the game too due to the lengthy daily routine... I adore the Langrisser series, but having to spend around an hour every day repeating the exact same things just for the daily quest was too much for me. Pretty much all your power increase comes from the daily quest, so if you don't do those, you don't progress. I found myself so tired of doing those quests that by the time I finished them, I didn't feel like doing any new stages anymore. So sick of waiting for auto stuff that it burned me off even doing what I enjoyed.The ratio of fun vs tedious repetitive content was wayyy off, and I honestly feel happier having dropped the game. I still had 12000 crystals and 50 unused summoning tickets, but I figured that there's absolutely no new hero or thing added that could be added to the game that would make the real time investment worth it. It's a real shame too: the presentation and graphics are spot-on, gameplay is pretty decent and I loved seeing the games I enjoyed so much being translated into this mobile form, and the nice anecdotes from the Gates of Fate. The mobile game doing great would increase the chance of getting new Langrisser console games (and getting them localized this time around), but... In its current form I just don't want to waste more time doing tedious stuff. Regarding other mobile games, I'm not starting any other gacha games personally, no matter how appealing they may look. I still play Fire Emblem Heroes because I enjoy it and the "forced time requirement" is much lower, but besides that if I have to play on mobile I'm playing buy-to-own games. There's some decent stuff on there like Empire of Angels 4 (only purchase is full time unlock), Templar Battleforce, etc. So nice to play on mobile without feeling like you have to play, or have pop-ups constantly appearing with "buy these packages for only 99$!" Good luck with your project! Anything you can share or is it too early?

I really like Sophie; she's one of the very few "clumsy" character I actually enjoy. She's the one single character that I always have on my team, no matter the path I'm following. She's earnest and got a good heart, her clumsiness is (mostly) believable, she has some entertaining supports, her personal skill is very silly but fun and I love her general design. I did think her supports were sometime a bit too Avel-focused, but not too bad on the whole. She's my favorite of the Fates children, but from CYL3 she's unfortunately ranked last of the Fates women... Pretty unfortunate, but I'm used to it at this point; the majority of characters I really like don't score well on popularity pools (bar the rare exception). Alas... From a gameplay perspective, she never been spectacular for me though. While she always carried her weight and never dragged my team down by her inclusion, she's never been a top tier unit for me. Power-wise, she's always one of my weaker character by endgame, no matter what mother she had (which includes great mothers like Corrin and Camilla), or if I recruited her incredibly early or very late. Still good enough to use every single run (like her too much not to), but never an important part of any of them.

Well, I have to say we have completely opposite opinions! I agree that Robin doesn't really work as an avatar, but I felt that as a main character she was great. I thought she was funny, entertaining and not overwhelmingly praised for no reason. I don't agree with the "stealing the spotlight" aspect: it's a story that features Chrom, Robin and Lucina as the main characters. Chrom has more focus early and Robin more later, but I don't view that as a problem at all. Actually, I feel the Fire Emblem stories are too "lord-focused" in general. The games are all about cooperation and an army of various characters working together to their goal. I personally welcome every opportunity characters other than the main lord(s) get to shine; having more characters "stealing the spotlight" away from the main lord is a positive thing as far as I'm concerned. I feel decisions are important when you have a silent protagonist because if you don't have those, the protagonist is basically a non-entity. If I have to play as an emotionless statue, I want them to at least do stuff and be part of the world. If it's a choice-less story with a voiced character, then I still get to view their personalities and their actions. If I'm playing a choice-less story with a silent protagonist that just stares while the other people interact, then I'm not sure what's that character's role. They do nothing, yet are present in (nearly) all the scenes in the game.

Bad thing for me, unless it's done incredibly well ala Growlanser: Wayfarer of Time. I never "self-insert" into games, so a silent protagonist generally mean that there's this one dude (nearly always a dude) that's present in all the scenes that just stares and nods at everything. I thought Robin was a great protagonist, but I never saw her as "my avatar": she's not "me" in the game, she's Robin. Ys 8 is a great example of this in my example. The game has Adol (mostly) and Dana (occasionally) as protagonists. Dana is absolutely FANTASTIC: She's determined, charming and you can feel how horrible her struggles are. Her sections as the protagonist are quite possibly the most heart-wrenching story I've ever seen in gaming, and I found myself with tears in my eyes more than once. On the other side, you have Adol doing very little. He's supposed to be "me", but I felt far more attached to the voiced protagonist that actually show emotions. So does the rest of the cast: there's some great discussions with people interacting in a nice way with good voice-acting, with Adol just sitting there staring blankly ahead and only getting a very occasional prompt to nod. Growlanser: Wayfarer of time is the one single game I've appreciated a silent protagonist. You have a gigantic amount of dialog options constantly (more than two in the majority of cases), but the big thing is that many answers actually change things. Sometime small changes that crops up only 10 hours later, sometime major. It did feel like he had a personality building based on what I answered and EVERYTHING addressed to him had some prompt (ie. very, very often), so characters didn't have to repeat what he just said either and made things more natural. If Byleth turns out to be a silent protagonist like that, I'll be satisfied (although it'll still be more jarring than Growlanser since this is a voiced game). We only seem to get 2 dialog options, but the little footage we've seen does point toward prompts being common so maybe it'll be like Growlanser. Doubtful, but not impossible. If that's not the case... then I guess I'll still appreciate the fact that female Byleth is an option; it'll actually be the very first time I get to play a story-heavy game that features a silent female protagonist. I doubt it'll improve my stance of silent protagonists much, but who knows?

Holy eff, you really weren't joking about Elma! Hope your exams went well! Regarding the thieves, I personally lost the chest in the early forest (chapter 4?), and the top house in the escape chapter where you need to board the boat (7?). The one in chapter 3 (? the one with flyer allies) was kind of hard to spot on my first run, but wasn't much of an issue on my second. I don't recall having too many problems with thieves from chapter 8 onward though as far as looting is concerned.

I'm both wary and interested enough for me to book my summer vacations starting on July 26th so I'm not sure where I fit on the pool. It's Fire Emblem and I'm sure it's going to be a ton of fun. It seemingly looks as if it's going to be incredibly replayable, I appreciate the in-game cutscenes (dialog with characters moving), basic story and setup seems good, there's skills which I enjoy, etc. I also have some concerns about the game (is everything going to be "just" based around the school all game, if the game will be properly balanced when there's so much option for character development, some aspect of the visuals, etc). So I guess I'm very hyped but wary about some aspects?

It'll probably be the most replayable entry in the series. Not only is there the house selection thing, but the character development aspect seems to be far more complex than in prior games. Of the highest importance, the game is still a turn-based strategy game, featuring all the core aspects that I love from the series. Free roaming and cross-student interactions opens up the potential to get most character development out any FE game so far. How far will it go? The secondary characters chatting scenes we've seen so far seems to be heading in a good direction. If we can get event-sensitive talks with the characters, then it can pass even PoR / RD camp conversations. No clue if it will actually happen, but all the framework is already in place so it seems likely to me. There's a few interesting characters in there; Petra and Leonie in particular gets a big thumbs up for me. There's a lot of skills involved here to get, and I'm all for it personally. It looks like we'll get a fair variety of classes too this time around (if the partial list we've seen from the Nintendo direct is the Intermediate classes, I'm curious as to what the Advanced will be). Some of the promoted class outfits looks nice (Leonie's warrior outfit in particular), and I'm looking forward to see the intermediate and advanced outfits. One of my main issue with the visual style was that everyone looked the same (especially on the battlefield maps), but you seemingly get first promotion pretty fast and since I always love to diversify my classes (bar usually using too many pegasus), characters should start looking distinct soon enough. I was very negative at F.Byleth's outfit originally, but in the newest footage and art it doesn't look that bad. I'm still not a fan, but I'm not cringing at it anymore and my dislike of it eased enough for me to stop complaining about it much and I'm pretty sure by the time's release I won't even think about it anymore.

That's my take on it too. At 4:07 in the Nintendo Direct video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OwUB8gf5Ac , we see Edelgard taking an exam, which requires an Intermediate seal (so likely, second class change out of three). The classes shown there are all different from the four basic ones seen there. The Fighter/Warrior from the first class change has access to bow, axe and gloves. The Intermediate set has Archer, Brigand and Thief, so a specialist for each weapon type. The same apply to Monk versus Mage and Priest. The Monk for the first class has both magic types, then you specialize into either Mage or Priest for the second class. Basically the inverse of the traditional Fire Emblem experience. It might generalize again some more on the third class change, though.

Actually, one of the screenshot posted on the front page shows Myrmidon Byleth having only 4 movement too. I think movement is going to be lower across the board in this game. Hopefully this doesn't mean 3 mov armor knights, though!

Yay, a few seconds of F.Byleth footage! It's honestly not as bad as I feared from the initial trailer. The tights don't look as awful (not good, but not nightmare fuel anymore either), and the top half fits well. The breastplate makes no sense, but in action it actually doesn't look too jarring? Not my favorite protagonist design by any means, but I can honestly say I can live with it now. Anna... If it weren't for her trademark pose, I honestly wouldn't have pegged her as an Anna at all. The biggest thing is the hair color being far more pink than red of course, but everything else is not really Anna-like either. I guess not all Anna look similar after all! Well, it's fine: it's an okay design (weirdly curving ponytail excluded), and I dig the Chrom-inspired one sleeved shirt.

I'm pretty happy to hear that! I've always sent my characters where I felt they would be most effective on the map; keeping characters paired for supports is very secondary to me and I don't like delaying maps for it. By version 2.0's end, I think I had maybe 6 supports combined (B with Claudius and Ciceria, and a few Cs). GBA-style supports have always been an issue for me; in my entire FE6 playthrough, I got 4 supports total. 3DS-style supports somehow worked for me (I think because amount of fights is a lot lower than number of turns for GBA and that both units trigger gains so you don't necessarily need to finish adjacent), but I still favor Path of Radiance / Radiant Dawn style most of all. Sanctaea Chronicles going for that is certainly great news for me! Especially since you have multiple supports per character (unlike Radiant Dawn). Regarding Discord, I haven't joined since I basically never use it, but I guess I should take a peak there sometime to get some more news!

Yay, news! Or news about upcoming news, at least. I guess we are really just getting face shots for dialog segment instead of full upper body this time? I admit I liked the larger shots we got in the more recent games, but if the in-game visuals are integrated well (for example, we see the characters doing proper animations during those conversations), it could be an upgrade. It'll also solve the "problem" where the character outfit didn't match the art after class change (face shot = outfit is irrelevant). I think this art for F.Byleth looks nice? I really wasn't a fan of the in-game model we have seen last trailer, but in art form it looks nice. I'm still not a fan overall and I still give the design a thumbs down overall (the tights mostly, and the nonsensical breastplate), but I'm a bit less negative about it than I used to be. Dimitri's armor is the most armor-like we've seen so far, so I'll take that improvement too. The colors on those images are brighter than what we saw on that trailer: I hope that's actually the case and not just on those low quality screenshots. One of my biggest complaint with the game's visual was how drab and "flat" everything looked. Those screenshots are brighter, more vibrant. I hope that will apply to the release game itself too! Sotthis amnesia... Not a huge fan, but I favor that over the protagonist having amnesia. Overall, I'm positive with these "pre-news" personally. It's mostly just from an aesthetic standpoint of course (no gameplay and very little story to be gained so far), but I'm happy with the improvements (in my opinion) being shown here.

I appreciate the big portraits personally; I vote to keep them for future updates. Ciceria's super pretty! I appreciate the armor design: it's basic and functional, but still has some details to make it looks nice. Chester breaks the trend of long-haired lancers, shame! :) If I can give a tiny criticism about something pretty insignificant... Chester's spear tip is probably too short to be very effective. The two prongs are liable not to go in, so the effective blade length of the spear is quite tiny (especially considering that armor is common in this setting). In my opinion, without the prongs it would look fine, OR with the prongs and a longer main blade. It's not an important point of course; it's single just the one thing that seems off to me (which is pretty darn good for three different art!) By the way... I'm kind of wondering if it would be preferable for me not to post on those portraits post unless I have something actually important to say about them..? I know some people go to the last post in a topic to evaluate if they want to read more of it. Seeing beautiful character art is probably better than a random's fan comment!

That cooking event's English... that has to have gone straight through Google translate with zero touch-up. We might have had "chirps" and stuff before, but that's by far the worst pieces of English we got so far. Hopefully that won't be the new norm! I'd love getting the Luna skin and I think I'd have enough crystals on hand to get it (4k), but since I spent about 25 10-pulls trying to get Angelina last banner and not getting her (nor Shelfaniel)... I'm keeping absolutely everything I have for her next banner. As far as progress go, I've been at roughly the same state for about two weeks. Trying to 3* the elite Time Rift 7 stages so that I can actually start getting the final class upgrade materials. I'm still not level 55 quite yet, but since it takes like 25 items of two types for each character and that you can get about 3 per day, I wanted to start stocking those ahead of time. I haven't been too successful at it due to not managing to 3* those stages in the first place... So my routine has been "do daily quests and call it a day" for about two weeks now.

Oh, I hadn't seen that image from the "old" Japanese trailer; it's a lot clearer than the new trailer image. Yeah, the female generics do look a lot more generic here; in particular I thought that the helmet was blond-ish hair, so it's really just the one-sided pants and the "leg band" that are un-generic. Regarding the male generics, I thought it was a big red "dot" painted over metal armor, and not a very tiny breastplate over cloth... Woops! Anyway, your color theory makes sense to me.

Nice find! It's unfortunately only about 3 seconds of combined footage, but I'll take any second we can get! Green Lyndhart is certainly unusual. A status effect does seem likely, but this looks pretty early in a stage to be hit by one (I assume the gates we see at the bottom of the screen are the map start). Poison seems most likely to me, I've seen it used for Regenerate or Status Up in a few other games, so it's possibly a beneficial effect too. The female generic soldiers here missing a pants leg is pretty unusual. It's the kind of thing you'd normally find on unique characters to make them look more special, not a standard-issue uniform. Generics normally have as few distinguishing characteristics as possible... but those female generics don't look like generics (especially compared to the male ones, who are as generic as can be) at all. If you'd show me a screenshot with only her on it, I would immediately think she'd be a unique character and not a generic. I'm a bit curious about the huge red dot on the male generic's breastplate. It's very conspicuous; I'm pretty sure it's supposed to represent something?

As far as I'm concerned, I'd possibly call this the best art I've ever seen in my life.

Ah well... I kind of ordered my copy on Amiami already. I did look Amazon.jp before, but I didn't figure out how to create a Canadian address. Looking at it today I see it though; at least my account will be ready for next time I guess! Well, it's fine. I did pick a slow shipping anyway; I really want a copy of the book (especially now that we've seen the mind-blowingly awesome cover), but I can wait a few additional days for it. Thanks for your detailed guide by the way!

That's an interesting theory, but I'd say it's likely a woman's eye. https://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?/topic/86443-every-character-organized-by-housewith-images/ If you look every single character art for this game, the women's eyes are round just like this and the men's eyes are more narrow and rectangular. The one single exception in the entire cast is Ashe, who has rounder eyes. Also, the way the "hair" (I don't know the name in English for them, sorry) flares out is generally used for feminine characters. It's certainly possible that it is a man (a surprised expression will give larger and rounder eyes, and the eye curls could fit on a feminine male character) and those two things are not a guarantee of anything, but if I had to take a bet, I'd bet on this being a woman.