Ayra

I don't think there will be, mainly due to teaching interface. What we've seen regarding lessons and character development looks pretty "final" to me, and there doesn't seem to be obvious space to add stone weapons. On the other hand, it'd be the best opportunity to make playable dragons as impressive as they sound in the story. They are supposed to be massive and terrifying force of nature. In Three Houses, they could make them manakete characters without a squad at all: in gameplay perspective it would be about the same as prior games, but from a visual standpoint you would have an actually big dragon that's fighting off an entire group of people instead of just one person like before.

Thanks for the guide! I'm curious about this one actually. You do get those red stones thingies from level 35+ dragons and from timeless trials. Since you can buy SSR spirits from those, a small handful of SSR equipment is viable, no? You don't have enough hammers to get equipment very high anyhow. My equipment is currently a mix of level 20 and 30s, but I don't have hammers to increase anything further so the shards haven't been an issue yet (level 42). Anyway, I'm somehow stuck with a +healing staff on my Lana... Despite doing dragons every single day since release, all I ever got is two +healing SR staff. I have enough helmets to outfit an entire army, but staves or bows? Nyope. *sigh* I remove what I said about Time Rifts being easier past level 40 after you got tier 3 troops. I managed to do Elite 5-1, but Elite 5-2 is a no-go at 3 stars. Too many units that agro at once in the last part of the stage, and every single one of them can 1-shot any of my units even without their troops (bar Freya, who can only block one due to block getting nullified). I can clear the stage, but not 3* it. I guess I am slightly low level for it (I was trying to unlock the farm spots so I could have the promotion items ready for everyone by level 45) but man, it's hard.

Black Eagles: Pros: - Axe lord: I always love female axewielders (especially foot ones) and there's very few in the franchise. Having one as a lord is amazing! - Petra: By far the nicest looking student in my opinion. Love the little mark under her right eye. - Empire: It'd be nice to have a not completely evil empire for once. Cons: - Dorothea's hat looks super strange. - REALLY not a fan of Caspar's hair. Blue Lions: Pros: - Theocracy: I hope it's a non-evil Theocracy for once (I think only FE8 had one? Very arguably Benion due to Sanaki and co). - Hopeful wishing, but maybe they'll get themed clothing later on. They seem the most likely to get actual armor (I love armor), and blue is the nicer color from the three countries. - Blonde lance lady looks nice, possibly the buzz-cut military man. Pretty neutral on the majority of the others though. Cons: - Dimitri's armor. It's slightly improved compared to the original trailer, but the pauldron still can't logically rotate (it makes no sense to be flush with the shoulder) and the "breastplate" still looks like a painted-on shirt. - The "prim-and-proper" faction: I don't mind in general unless it gets pushed very hard in which case it starts to annoy me. Golden Deers: Pros: - Leonie and Raphael looks decent. Cons: - Hilda's eyes. Less disturbing than the original trailer, but still disturbing. - Not a fan of yellow clothing in general. - "We don't need no kings or emperors! We are so much better than everyone else! ...but the next leader is going to be the son of the current leader, so it's the exact same thing with a different name". Honestly, if I could pick I'd pick the "Teachers" faction. Mustache man and sexy teacher > all the students. Since that's not an option... it's between the Black Eagles and Blue Lions for me. Golden Deers is a definite third for me unless a to-be-revealed character in it really strikes my fancy.

I didn't know that! I have been slacking off in Timeless Trials because I feel like I'm already spending way too much time on the game: there's so much thing to do already that I just don't have the time / willpower to do Timeless Trials on top of that too. The "sweep if you got farther" thing makes it a lot more appealing though. I called it quit after the second round before because I felt the "red stones" is by far the most important reward, but if I can get it instantly by getting further on future weeks it's certainly worth the effort to do so. Regarding Elite 4-3, it's certainly the biggest wall I've seen so far. I had to go put it on hold for a while until I upgraded Freya and Lana (by Elite 4-2 or earlier, after enough days they had enough materials to get their new troops), which allowed me to finally 3* Elite 4-3. It's been (mostly) smooth sailing since. I just hit Elite 5-1 (for the level 45 upgrades, only Elite stages drop class materials from now on) and it's hard-but-doable, so I think the level 45 upgrades will be easier to attain than the level 40 ones.

I'd love Fire Emblem Warriors 2 and I'd certainly buy it day 1, but I don't think we'll see one before at least Three Houses comes out. Normally, you would have expected SoV to have been a more present part of FEW considering the timing of release: however, except for Celica's visual design, nothing of that was in FEW. You'd need very, very close collaboration for Three Houses characters (and plot?) to be part of Fire Emblem Warriors 2 and have both games come out relatively close to each other. The Three Houses delays do make it a tad more plausible, but I'm pretty doubtful. And while I know there's plenty of characters and plot settings they can use from older games, it's very doubtful they would release a new FEW game without having the new FE game as one of its main focus.

I've already given my thoughts in details about Fire Emblem Three Houses in the Fire Emblem section, so regarding the others things that interested me in the direct... Astral Chains is giving me extreme Nier Automata flashbacks, which is a very good thing considering I adored that game. Bayonetta doesn't appeal to me much at all (I regret buying 1+2 on the Switch) so I was pretty indifferent to Platinum studio's Bayonetta 3, but on the other hand this game interests me a lot. Very likely purchase. Daemon x Machina interests me to some extent: it's a firm "maybe" at this point. I played a bit of the demo (first two stages, failed the third; will retry over the weekend) and my overall opinion remains the same. I'm not a big Mario fan in general, but Mario Maker is actually interesting. I never played it myself (no Wii U, 3DS version felt too limiting to buy), but the majority of my youtube watching is actually people playing incredibly creative and clever stages. I do have some ideas for a few Fire Emblem-themed levels (assuming the costumes make a return) and I'm interested in playing other people creations so I'll be picking this one up.

I gave it a short spin last night (didn't have time for more). On the positive side, I really like how characters look (decent character creation), and the portraits in particular are godlike. The battles are quite fun too, especially how you zoom when on the ground. On the negative side, I sometime felt like I didn't have enough fingers to control everything I needed to. "Okay, I want to block while shooting my gun and missiles, and I need to keep the camera aimed at the enemy robot, while dashing and rising. So I need to press and hold ZL, L, ZR, A and X while maneuvering both analog sticks somehow." Maybe I'm just not used to shooters though! I'd love if the minimap could also indicate if an enemy is higher or lower than you. The gameplay loop feels very "Monster Hunter" unfortunately to me, with the tiny roaming hub and mission and reputation thing to progress. It's not my favorite style, but the story has potential. By the way, did anyone figure out if you can actually repair your mech once it's knocked out? Sure you can fight when you are on-foot which is pretty cool, but you are extremely limited and trying to fight anything but simple tanks is a death sentence. It feels like an extended gameover sequence; did I miss anything?

That's a good point regarding the divider; I didn't see a scroll bar so I assumed it was a full list, but the divider gives me some hope. Pegasus knights are my favorite Fire Emblem class and I really don't want to go without! Well, flyers certainly exist considering the flying skill and iron bow anti-flyer bonus, it's more the first-tier existance I'm wondering. House-specific is a possibility too, since Dimitri's faction has a griffin as a symbol. If that's the case, I know which faction I'm picking.

Thank you very much for the analysis! It's very entertaining and there's a ton of things I hadn't noticed... Especially interesting are the changes from the Japanese trailer, in particular things like what the fingers means in the training screen. One thing semi-important thing I didn't see mentioned: When Bernadetta selected Curve Shot, her attack range actually changed to 2-3 range. That makes a huge difference in archer usability. Edit: I'm curious about the "Professor level" thing. Normally, you'd think it would be weapon experience to the character herself, but the term "Professor Level" sounds as if it apply to the protagonist instead. Do you level up swords for all characters at once..? Or does it mean that the more your students use sword, the easier it is to teach swords to other units? Re-edit: Wait, I just noticed that there's no first tier flying unit? None of the options shown on the reclass screen offer flying.

Oh, I'm sure certain characters will have different color sets in other classes. There's two problems though: 1) We haven't seen any vibrant color anywhere, except for arguably Claude's cape thing and the soon-to-be-dead father. Every color everywhere is a very dull shade. Even the "Tiki" and the female teacher (who has some green, yay) are mostly faded. 2) Their portrait, cutscenes and basically all their art is going to feature their default black costume. This means Heroes characters, Cipher, promotial art, fan art, cosplay, etc is all going to be black everywhere.

My first impressions. Of course that's all based on my personal tastes. Positives: World seems to be well-developed and there seems to be a lot of backstory here. I'm pretty optimistic about the story at this point. Game seems to be incredibly replayable: character development is a lot more open and complex than usual, plus there's three factions to pick (it probably won't change the entire game ala Fates, but it's additional variation for sure). Central hub is a lot better integrated than Fates and makes sense in-world. Also, it makes a ton of sense why the protagonist would be the "improvement plans". Female Byleth exists, is an adult (oldest Fire Emblem protagonist besides possibly some Robin options?), and pretty much everyone is an adult (I never liked children soldiers). It looks like there's going to be quite a bit of character interaction, so I think we can expect the return of something like base conversations. Active skills to use. We saw Curved Shot, which increased bow range by 1. There's potential for interesting things here. Negatives: School setting. I've never enjoyed a single game set in a school setting... The fact that the protagonist is a teacher instead of a student should help considerably, though. Black outfits for everyone and lack of color in general. Every character looks extremely samey, with the same basic black design with some minor variations. There's very little color anywhere, and even the environment have this dull look. Even both of Edelgard's new outfits we've seen were dull red. It'll also make a ton of upcoming Fire Emblem Heroes characters, cipher cards and general character art all variations of black-with-some-white outfits, since it's their default and "canon" looks. Where's my colors? :( Armor. I love armor, and normally I'd expect that to be a given in a medieval fantasy war game. There's very little armor here, and except for male Byleth, what's there is simply awful. Female Byleth armor makes very little sense and would be extremely inneffective and Dimitri's armor simply can't work (he shouldn't be able to even raise his arm). Cutscenes. Awakening and Fates had much nicer cutscenes in my opinion; the framerate in particular seems awful here. Silent protagonist. Since I never self-insert in a game, silent protagonists in story-heavy games never worked for me. I'm fine with something ala Robin where she is her own person, but that doesn't seem to be the case here. Battle animations looks kind of eh in general. Look at Petra's crit in particular. The "arena" duel looked nice though, so we'll see. Worries: Character uniqueness. Most characters seems to start in the equivalent of a villager, with no set class or development path. Some character do seem to have "preferences" (learning speed), but on the whole, if everyone is special, no one is. With everyone also looking so samey due to clothes, I'm concerned that they'll also be extremely samey from a gameplay perspective. Grinding. There's a ton of elements here that points toward the game potentially being grindy, from teacher levels, training plans, sending students out for practical experience, etc. I hope the game isn't designed around the need to grind to progress through it, since it's both tedious and make balancing extremely difficult.

I'm not a fan either. I generally don't mind sexualized outfits in general, but this outfit just doesn't look good to me. The ripped tights is certainly the biggest offender to me, but the "breastplate" itself looks mighty strange. It's like an open corset, with a row of separate plates in between (with convenient tummy hole), and then under that something that might or might not be fabric? Not to mention the colors: We have pure black for the pants, dark gray for the breastplate and shoulders, very slightly lighter gray for the fabric (?) of the chest piece, light gray for the arm armor and cape, and a different gray for the tights. I have concerns like you regarding how samey everyone looks too. All black with some white, with only minor differences for each character. Even the three houses don't seem to be visually different: same basic outfit for everyone. I'm also concerned with the two promoted outfits we've seen for Edelgard: both were dull red everywhere. Where's my colors? :(

Ah, I recalled reading something about an issue about experience gain for high level unpromoted units, but I forget / didn't notice that it was only for killing promoted units and thought that it was just too low gains in general (I didn't find that to be the case though). I thought it might have been something to do with their boss status too, but the minibosses gave me plenty of experience... but I beat them with now promoted units so it all makes sense. Good to know that it's going to be fixed eventually! I think I just kept her with her default hand axe and silver axe. Now that you mention it, that might be part of the issue. I'm used to silver weapons being light and not an issue regarding weight in Fire Emblem in general, but this game gives a straight speed penalty and I didn't even check how heavy that axe was. I normally would have, but I admit I kind of winged it for the last chapter, and I didn't use her in chapter 14 (I added Hera instead with the additional deployment slot you get there).

Well, there's actually a smaller one at level 35 too. At level 35, the difficulty gets adjusted by assuming you'll be using a faction/fusion buff from now on, which gives pretty hefty attack and defense bonuses. If you were already buff spells (they don't stack) it won't be that much of a difference though, and you'll be set to go as soon as you have upgraded your new classes. The level 40 wall is a bit like that: enemies get third tier troops which makes a huge difference. If you don't have them, you get destroyed. The problem is, some class upgrade components to get them are behind a level 40 stage. I did manage to barely do it by upgrading my lancer and mage troops (components were from earlier stages fortunately) and boosting their troops a bit via bonds, so in a few days I should have got materials to upgrade the rest of my troops. Regarding troop levels, I'm at 8 in my most used types (Lancer, flyer, holy, archer), 6 in cavalry (I only use Sonia occasionally) and 4 in sword (I don't have a sword user; none exist for the princess faction). I've only been doing the two daily quests though and two 8 hours expeditions per day though; I haven't farmed them any.

Well, you could also have them not have their medallion, as per your original plan. Boudicca and Hera could claim their position, and Zheng just scoffs them of because they don't have proof. That'd keep things the most similar to how they are right now, but still make the diplomatic scene a bit more believable. By the way, for some reasons the bosses of chapter 13 and 14 only gave one single experience points upon their defeat. I have no ideas why that was the case, but it felt very strange. After the chapter 13 boss I thought that this was maybe because she joined you, but the two witches from chapter 14 certainly don't. Speaking of the chapter 13 boss (Hippolyta I think?), she felt pretty mediocre as a unit when I deployed her on chapter 15. I'm used to berzerkers being able to at least take down units, but she's too slow to double the enemies there; a berzerker that can't kill stuff isn't too great. Compare her stats to Hera: Hera joins earlier, is lower level, has higher stats in most things, and she flies which is huge considering how flier-friendly this game is, especially since they can canto. Except for weapon exp, most of my high level but still unpromoted units would probably beat her 1vs1 actually.

Ah..? I was certain the game was going to be substantially delayed. If they are doing a direct with Three House as the main subject, then it's quite likely the game isn't that far away after all. Glad to see I was (probably) wrong! Looking forward to tomorrow.

The bosses were not much of an issue for me. Like absolutely everything else, Cami simply one-rounded the death-using witch. The witch would only have dealt 5 damage to her, so even with a crit Cami would have easily survived (the witch missed). Cami was around level 16 unpromoted at the time with no stat boosters used on her. The "nosterafu light witch" took a bit more work, but it was a low-risk affair. I shot her with Ashaki at three range for low damage (she has arrow guard) then hit-and-run with Bouddica (missed one attack and the witch hit so there wasn't too much progress done there). Healed Bouddica and repeated next turn, which worked this time. Ciceria would have been in reach to finish it this time though if it had failed again. Pretty sure just throwing Cami at her would have worked just fine though; she got there barely too late for that. It's plausible the witch could have survived a round of combat against Cami (mayyybe; she'd have been the first character to do so) but I'm pretty sure Cami would have 1-1 her handily anyway. I thought maybe there would have been gatherings and meetings where the kings would have brought their heirs so it would have been pretty plausible for Zheng to know them, but you certainly know your world a lot better than I do :) If Bouddica and Hera actually have story chapters later on, I think adding them to the chapter 15 intro could be a good idea to "keep them in the loop" anyhow, so I think it'd be an even better idea to do so.

That's some amazing art! Awesome! On a somewhat off-topic note, the Langrisser 1+2 remake has a demo available on the Japanese Switch eShop, covering chapters 1 to 3 of the first game and 4 to 6 of the second. The battle animations are pretty bad (can be turned off fortunately), but besides that I feel they are pretty fun. There's some important differences compared to the original games (no 10HP system, no healing on rest, class change is now CP based, stats amounts and damage dealt, some maps changes, hidden items now show up on the map, etc), and I'm not ready to say it's necessarily better than the originals, but it seems to work quite well here. Similar enough to be nostalgic, different enough to feel like a new experience. Day 1 preorder for me if it comes out in English for sure! Regarding the mobile game, I'm at level 38 on Dalsis with a Princess team. I was very fortunate with the gacha: while I got what I believe to be a very average amount of SSR characters, every single one of them were Princess members (Luna, Lana, Liana, plus the free Cherie). I'm extremely happy with what I got both favorites-wise and gameplay-wise, and the last spot I can swap between Freya, Sonia or Chris as needed (no Sophia yet). I have to say I'll have to "let go" of the game a bit though... I've been doing the daily quests every day, and there's a ton of them and it takes the majority of my leisure time. I dislike being "forced" to play a game, and well, I'm not forced to play. Just have to convince myself that it's fine if I miss those bonuses and I'm not in a rush for anything really. By the way, the level 40 stuff seems to be a gigantic wall. I was trying to get the class upgrade materials for it in advance (only three sweeps per day for Elite, and I can't get those from regular stages yet), and for the final component it's a level 40 stage. It'd be one of the harder ones to start with, but the enemies gets a gigantic power boost and they completely destroy my units in a direct fight (and there's a ton of them agroing at once). I'm collecting materials for my other characters for their level 40 upgrade; hopefully upgrading a few of them to the new soldiers will enable me to beat that stage and enable me to start getting those items for Luna and Cherie.

That looks pretty similar to my playthrough actually! Very similar stats and using very similar units. Haylyn was a monster for me too; I did realize around chapter 18 though so she did get to nuke stuff on my playthrough. Celia was godlike for me too, and I did the same on her paralogue. Lani also got a lot of my stat boosters: in my case it's because pegasus knights are my favorite class though. My tactician also looked like that, but with around 20 defenses (she got the draco shields). Chiara I also dropped right after promotion due to awful strength (9...). Beatrice I kept and she was useful, but her magic was quite low too. Aceline I dropped at around level 15 due to being mediocre all-around: her meh stats really didn't justify her movement and armor weakness. Regarding hacks, this is the best one I've played personally by a good amount. I thought Requiem was decent though and worth the play. I haven't played Road to Ruins yet.

And done! ... good thing I just doubled-checked before posting because else I'd look very silly. On the computer I played on, the "passable forests" and "impassable forests" looked nearly the same color. I found myself throwing my units at deadends constantly (see the horse archer for an example), but looking at my screenshot from this computer it's clearly different... So I'm removing my complaint before placing it. Chapter 13: It's better than I thought it'd be. I thought the map was wide open: I hadn't realized at first that there was some terrain that could not be traversed. Mind you, it's still not a great map in my opinion, but at least it's not catastrophe-level like I feared. It's slow with absolutely nothing happening (and it's certainly one of the ugliest maps I've ever seen), but figuring out where to use flyers best can get some enjoyment. Also a good map to safely feed some exp to weaker units. Not much to say about this one! Chapter 14: Pretty decent. Upon seeing the flyers all rush in I was afraid that we'd get a chapter 6 situation where nothing happens past the initial rush, but the reinforcements solved that. I felt they were both fair but still sizeable enough to make a difference. I took the long way around for most units, but I still had turns to spare to get the bonus exp by the end. A bit on the easy side in my opinion, but not really warranting a change due to it. Chapter 15: ... well, I can't give a fair assessment of this one unfortunately since I "cheated" here. Since this is the last chapter, I figured I'd use all my bonus exp and use all the Merit Crests I had even on units that were about level 15 or 16 and get to experience some advanced classes. The result is that it changed what was probably a very hard chapter into a breeze. My thoughts on the chapter are very good overall, but I can't vouch for the difficulty since Landskenneck (sp?) Ciceria using Troy's Spirit Sword just tore through the bottom right side of the map all by herself and Dolphiné and Bouddica did the same on the bottom left. The thieves were still pretty nasty though: even 20/2 class changed Carol could only handle one side, and only by using an entire stack of Hi-Potions, while Hera and Shaman Rosa managed with quite a bit of difficulty the other side. The shops being the defense points is pretty neat. I think this seems like a great chapter, but I really can't vouch on it difficulty-wise considering what I did... Visually, the strange buildings are great, but the "dense city" parts on the bottom and top corners looks strange. Overall, I'd say the game is still very good and fun, but I can't say I feel it's getting "better" either, if that makes any sense. Some chapters were fillers of the highest order. Storywise, it feels extremely strange not to have Hera join the main cast in dialog. Dialog-wise, I felt the last chapter was pretty weak. To me it felt like a large drop in quality compared to earlier in the game. The encounter with that new ruler was basically: "Hey, we need you to declare war on the rest of the continent." "Hmm... No, I don't think that'd be wise. We're invincible after all, with a super strong navy." "What? How dare you not declare war on our behalf, us people you know nothing about? "Oh! The enemy just got through our invincible navy and instantly launched a massive attack right at the heart of our capital. We're doomed! Save us and we'll do anything!" I realize the king is supposed to be spineless and incompetent, but Carol's request to declare war on every other nation feels extremely silly. The whole exchange felt extremely unrealistic and super simplified, something more akin what you'd find in children tales. Too simple and basic compared to what we've seen before, which is unfortunate considering it's one of the critical parts of the story. I feel this game's writing is decently strong on the whole and in particular I enjoyed when Cato was being split between giving over the reign or holding on thinking his plans had the best chance to save his people, but I have to give a big thumbs down on the final chapter. Carol is a nobody in court; very few people know she's the legitimate ruler. On the other hand, Bouddica is the princess of her land and her father was slaughtered by Cato at the negotiation grounds and herself captured. She's by rights the queen, but her lands were conquered by Rema. Hera is a legitimate princess of her land, in the middle of a civil war. The king has probably met them both before, and they have actual political ground and good arguments to request assistance (was Carol's legitimacy even mentioned to the king?). When I stopped at chapter 6, I was looking forward to play more. When I played up to chapter 12, I thought it was great. When I finished final chapter 15 here, I couldn't help but feel disappointed. Sorry about complaining about what is a massive labor of love but since you asked for feedback I figured I should be honest.

Currently playing so I'll probably have feedback for more chapters to offer soon, but I just hit a strange bug and since I have the screenshot on hand I figured I'd post it now... https://imgur.com/a/pTYxQuM This is Josie with both her Skeleton Keys (30/30 uses) and the Chest key. She doesn't have the Chest command available to her. I first tried with just the Skeleton keys by itself, same thing. However, Carol with the Chest Key was able to open the chest, so it doesn't look like the chest itself was bugged. It looks like there's something wrong with Josie and her Skeleton Keys somehow.

VERY nice portraits! I'm starting to understand Petricia a bit more now... Anyway, that's very professional work: to be 100% honest, I prefer that art style over what we've seen of Three Houses so far. I didn't get the chance to play more of the game yet, but I can certainly offer a reply :) - For Chapter 10, I personally didn't find the "going in" aspect to be slow or boring. I don't tend to do "rush strats" though, but at "infantry pace" (plus two pegasus) I thought the map moved quickly enough. The "going out" part was slow and boring though since the central units were a non-factor due to Manzarek. I could have setup rescue chains to make it faster, but I didn't think the dancer would have to exit from the entrance (I thought she would leave via the side exits like the villagers). - In Chapter 11, a priest did cast sleep on Hera (I think it failed) but it felt irrelevant considering how the few attackers immediately died, and nothing existed to threaten her except for the slow-moving boss. I admit that making it harder to save her is very problematic since it's a desert chapter... it's possible that a player would have lost their flyers by then. It's probably safer to keep it easier like now I guess. But yeah, chopping two turns off the turn count would probably be a good idea since you "run out of things to do" on the map. I admit that one of the reinforcement wave was a bit tricky (got hit by the southwest wyverns at the same time as the north reinforcements), but overall, it felt too long for its own good. The Cato change would help some I think. - Chapter 12, I admit I fed a ton of bonus exp to Rosa to get her to 20/1 (made her a shaman since her res was already godlike; all she needed was some defense) which help clear the west side faster. Troy in particular can take care of a lot of the east side by himself (though I had close to half my army with him anyway), and Bouddica went straight up the middle to snipe the archer, then took down the boss via Spirit Spear canto out a few times. I didn't feel I was going amazingly fast though or doing unusual strategies to cut turns, so it's very possible someone who prioritize speed could clear it before the amazon spawn (pretty sure I would have if I didn't want to shop for two turns). - Units: Claudius and Carol weapon levels haven't been a problem this time around, even without scrolls. Despite her horrible defense Carol was still pretty handy offensively though, and had enough hit points to survive. Claudius... well, his rapier is still very good, so as long as I don't run out of uses he'll be fine. After that... he's not horrible, just less good than the rest of my army (bar Petricia and Marcella). That's too bad regarding Marcella! I do like using an armor on my team despite them not being optimal, and I did give her the boots despite knowing it was a mistake. I don't really have stat boosters to give her (Boudicca got many of them), but I'll give Marcella another chance when version 3.0 comes out and hope for better RNG luck :) I admit I haven't even checked Petricia's res. I did naturally make her go after mages though (since it's the only thing she had strength to hurt), but I admit she fared fine against them with her Kodachi. Cami did that job better though, with her "obliterate absolutely everything" trait and even higher res. I am using Rosa too on top of Chaucer: I dislike having only one healer in my army, especially since there's multiple occasions when you want to split your army. He's kind of fun personality-wise though, so I don't mind him being part of my female-"only" run by default. I was just shocked at how durable he was: higher defense than anyone in my army, including an armor knight, was just shocking. Maybe Manzarek isn't as powerful as I thought he was: the boss room in his join chapter is literally 100% physical units after all. I didn't use him past his recruitment chapter, but I felt he was absurdely powerful there. If he completely melts against mages I guess he'd still be balanced. By the way, aren't Mend staves kind of priced high comparatively? They have 10 less uses, only heal for 5 points more, but cost like three times more?

Oh no, please don't play Guardians of Valeira! It's literally just a 1-map demo made with the Japanese version of SRPG Studio in its very early days. It was just an example to show how much of the application was translatable in English and give an idea of simple events; with the English version of SRPG Studio now being available, there's literally nothing of worth in Guardians of Valeira anymore. My issue with Clarent Saga is the design choices used: They aren't bad choices by any means and are perfectly valid, it's just that it doesn't fit what I like to play. The main thing is that Final Fantasy Tactics gets away with very limited deployment slot by having more "complex" units with multiple skills, unit facing, altitude, etc. The complexity and interest for me in Fire Emblem games comes from the large deployment size: each unit is relatively simpler, but putting them together and position them correctly on the map is the challenge. I always use maximum deployment slots in any Fire Emblem game I play: You can deploy 16 in this chapter? I'll use 16. In Awakening and Fates, I limit my pairup usage because I love having a ton of units on the battlefield. Clarent Saga generally has 5 or 6 unit deployment slots and the maps are built according to that. I personally find it too limiting for my tastes: it's a Fire Emblem-like game in complexity, but with very few units. So it's kind of lacking the biggest thing I enjoy in Fire Emblem gameplay. I mean, it's not something that can be "tweaked" either: the entire game is balanced around that. It's a design choice from the very start that affects the very game (so I can't be changed), and again I want to stress it's not a wrong choice: it's just not one that matches my personal taste. Of less importance, I'm not a fan of the progression. The "promotion time" is always something I look forward to, but here all your units are already promoted and reclassable for the first arc. I always love seeing what a unit can change into (especially with a new engine like this where the sky is the limit and we aren't sure what to expect), but here you get to know all of it from the very start. It kind of sapped a bit of the "wonder". Inventory management is another thing: I'm more than fine with Fates unlimited duration items, but in most cases it's a tradeoff: This weapon has this plus and this minus, and you need to pick the right one. Here, there's unlimited use super weapons everywhere for certain characters, so I'm not feeling as if I'm doing any real inventory choices here.

Best of luck with your Kickstarter! I own a copy of the game on steam, but unfortunately a lot of design decisions in Clarent Saga weren't to my taste: a lot of it went against what I personally find fun in Fire Emblem-like games. Still, even though the game didn't match my preferences, I wish you the best for your project. It's nice to see a (nearly) finished and big SRPG project like this: I'm sure an immense amount of effort and time went into this. I hope you'll be successful!

I finished chapters 10 to 12. Here goes! Chapter 10: Note to self: Check enemy weapons before selecting who to deploy. I picked Dolcinée because I finally had a female cavalry... it didn't turn out to be a great idea considering how an immense amount of enemy units had anti-cavalry weapons. Whelp. The first half of the map was relatively tough: No terrain bonuses anywhere, lots of enemies, open spaces and high damage enemies, coupled with a thief to catch. The second half was a piece of cake: the bottom right side of the map was easier to clear and the bonus exp wasn't too hard to get. The "boss group tracking you down" thing really didn't work for me though: I plopped the new dark mage in the entryway so no enemies could leave and I simply had Fatima leisurely stride to the exit over multiple turns (with a few rescues to save a bit of time, but I didn't think she'd have to exit from all the way where we started so I wasn't ready for a quick exit). Fun for about two thirds of it, but the last third didn't work correctly for me. Chapter 11: Desert map... At least, no hidden items to find (I think), so there's at least that. For a desert map, it actually wasn't annoying... But to be honest it wasn't too much fun either. It was basically the inverse of the boat map: the units I had to protect were in zero danger whatsoever. Hera and the archer lady were at full hit points, and only one of the generic armors received any damage (it was minor). After maybe turn 3, there was no enemies anywhere close to threaten them for the 9 remaining turns. Cami 1-round the boss when he was still a few turns away from reaching the castle, so no issues there. I did require a Sleep Staff use at one point to save Marcella from death (she was too close to reinforcements I wasn't expecting). Most of my foot infantry just kind of waddled around the middle doing nothing of note; they first were heading to the castle but there was nothing left, went back toward the bottom left when wyvern groups started appearing there and ended up in the end fighting a small piece of the north side reinforcements. Kind of tedious chapter in my opinion and not too interesting. Storywise, the timeline seems off. Carol's group went: Town -> prison -> desert fight; I'm sure a few days went by here, but... In the same amount of time, Cato got possessed by something, formed the Inquisition, terrorized the population, managed to bring the evil-lord-from-Carol's-story-I-don't-recall-the-name-of into submission, and have that lord's troop march all the way into the desert to attack Hera? Chapter 12: Pretty fun on the whole. The thieves were surprisingly easier here to stop than many other stages. I enjoyed this one; no complaints or suggestions to give here. I'm wondering what happens if you clear all the enemies before the amazons spawn though? I had only two enemies remaining on the map when they spawned, and I could have beat them on that turn if I didn't want to shop. Very enjoyable chapter imo. I did peak at the chapter 13 map, and... uh... first impressions are not great. Visually awful, and it looks like the enemies were randomly vomited on the map every few square. Maybe it will play better than it looks, but... yeah. I'll wait until I actually play it to give out a final judgement though. Character performance: I know character growth is partially random and some units might be unduly blessed or cursed, but here's some opinions about units that are noteworthy on my playthrough, The dark mage seems absolutely borked? I'm not sure of his join stat at level 8, but at level 9 he had 14 defense. On a mage with full 1-2 range access. He literally killed the entire boss room in chapter 10 (including the boss) except for a few archers (he could have beat them by himself easily, but I wanted to save time). Since he's male I benched him after his join chapter, but I probably would have benched him anyway because he seems to be WAY too good unless his growths are awful. Bouddica, Ciceria and Cami are my star units. Bouddica did get stat booster favoritism(including the wrath + vantage-like scrolls), but she was already great in the first place especially combined with flight + canto. Ciceria is my strongest unit overall: fast, tough, very strong and with decent resistance. Note that she's level 15 and with 15 defense and I consider her to be super tough (just to compare with the level 9 mage with 14...). Cami 1-round absolutely everything and is basically immune to magic; she's not durable to physical hits but besides that she's just incredible. Speaking of tough unit, Chauster, at level 11, has 16 defense. That's more than anyone in my army. It's strange, especially since the only units I have that are close are Ciceria, and... Marcella. 14 defense as a level 11 armor knight. Awful resistance, mediocre speed. Decent but not exceptional strength. She's okay at best in battle, but with armor weakness and less movement than everyone else. Awful. Petricia is faring pretty badly too. She's faster than most unit, but awful everywhere else: with Marcella, she's certainly the worst unit on my team. Claudius is faring better, but veeery slightly only. Carol has no defense to speak of (4 still I think?), but at least she has great offense, evasion and hit point pool so she's still good.