spinarak

I was pretty excited for Triangle Strategy from the trailers, but this prologue demo has been kind of disappointing. The story parts just drag on without saying much that's actually interesting, there's no good balance between story and battle segments. I also wish there was more in the way of unit customisation. As it is, it looks like all you get to do is choose which weapon skills to upgrade in what order, but there's no class changes/promotion options, no skill tree, and a very limited equipment system. It all seems kind of simplified for a casual audience?

I frankly think mentioning Fates characters is unfair, it'd be a shorter list to name actually good Fates characters than bad ones. Awakening to me doesn't have any egregiously annoying or awful characters, primarily ones that are boring and add little, but Tharja is simply an awful human being who doesn't deserve the love she gets from the fandom. The obsessive girl shtick is annoying, made worse by the fact that in many S-supports she basically goes "Meh, I guess I'll settle for you." to a guy who genuinely does love her, but what takes the cake is her undeniably abusive treatment of her daughter Noire. Fuck Tharja. As far as Three Houses goes, my two least favourites are Raphael who brings down the entire narrative with his complete lack of character. He literally has nothing going for him other than 'eat food' and 'muscles', oh right, he also has a sister. It just stands out in the worst way in a game with remarkably well-developed characters most of the time. The other is Leonie, who I'm not sure anyone could have thought was likable? Who thought "you don't love your dad as much as I do" was a good personality trait?

Black Eagles: F!Byleth x Edelgard Blue Lions: F!Byleth x Dimitri Golden Deer: M!Byleth x Lysithea I really hope I can be in lesbians with the Law empress, because it seems like it could be an interesting weak spot for her. These might change wildly while I play the game though, I planned to marry Libra in Awakening, then ended up falling in love with Gaius as soon as I met him.

I'm finding my choice incredibly difficult. I will not be going Golden Deer first, because from what we've seen of them so far they simply provide less mystery and interest than the others, I also like Claude the least out of the three house leaders. My favourite student is also in Golden Deer though, so I will definitely be recruiting Lysithea on my first playthrough. Between Black Eagles and Blue Lions I'm very torn. Ideally I'd like to start with Black Eagles first, because if they have two routes like the leak suggested, I'd like to do the "true" route last and the other route first to keep enough space between them to help it feel fresh. I also adore Edelgard, but the other students in her house interest me the least. If I can romance Edelgard as F!Byleth then I am 100% on board for doing Black Eagles first though. Blue Lions to me has a lot of characters I'm interested in like Felix, Ingrid and not least of all Dimitri. I am extremely interested in the events surrounding Dimitri's change after the timeskip, and romancing Dimitri to me also seems like it might affect the story in interesting ways. I also feel like going Blue Lions first might make having to fight Dimitri later on that much more impactful/bittersweet. Yeah, I really haven't decided yet.

Anyone but Corrin for Fates would be good. I might be in the minority who likes self-inserting, but I kind of prefer a self-insert who isn't the center of the plot but instead just another unit. Kind of like Robin in the first half of Awakening. Corrin existing as a character isn't really a problem, but the absolute degree to which they were the center of the universe was absurd. I like Takumi or Xander for the two nations respectively. I also think Minerva as an alternate lord for Shadow Dragon would be super interesting as mentioned.

What I loved about Fire Emblem Echoes was the ability to use absolutely every character. I really like having a smaller roster so I don't have to choose characters to bench and so everyone feels part of the story. I'd be pretty happy if we only got our own house, and then some outside-the-academy recruited characters. I thought Fates, for example, just had too many characters which made a lot of them feel very forgettable. I agree that it'd be a little unfortunate if we got the characters from every house, since then there'd have to be some pretty big changes in other areas to make the house choice feel meaningful at all.

Way to drop the ball, Nintendo UK. There's absolutely no way this was an intentional reveal.

As far as the character designs go for this game, I think they're pretty hit or miss. Chinatsu's artstyle is not really my cup of tea, but it's not awful either. A lot of the designs feel just a bit off to me though. The biggest example is F!Byleth whose proportions don't seem right and whose outfit is just plain ugly. In the end, I'm a bit disappointed, but that's mostly because I got used to Hidari's absolutely gorgeous art style and character designs. I also agree with Ayra above, the school setting and resulting uniforms makes for bad, same-y character design and combined with the slight case of sameface syndrome from the artist, it makes everyone blend together and feel indistinct and boring as a consequence.