Elephantus

When it comes to these, I tend to focus on disabling things that make the game less fun for me. As such, my own "challenge" rules include -no rewinds after character deaths - Divine Pulse is allowed, but death cannot be undone. -no trading around equipped items on a unit that already moved -gifts may only be given to characters that have less than full motivation

I like that idea even more than mine actually. Good stuff.

Maybe by giving them a cost similar to what Hollow Knight does with charms? To elaborate, in that game, you can equip charms that give passive boosts of various sorts, but each charm has a cost associated with it, which means you can only equip a limited number of them at one time. Naturally the more powerful charms have a higher cost associated with them. I could see the same working with spells, where something basic like "Fire" would be cheaper than, say, Physic or Ragnarok.

Voted no, and here's why: I don't like the concept of a player avatar in Fire Emblem to begin with, and while Byleth isn't exactly an avatar, I feel like they're kind of made to resemble one. While I get what they were going for with the character, I would have much prefered a more defined personality rather than the blank slate we got. The fact that Byleth has defined talents already is a step in that direction, if a minor one.

Interesting perspective. This kind of stuff is why I love this topic actually. I brought up Venin weapons because for me it was a simple "no, can't see any situation where I'd want to poison my enemy", but your reasoning is actually very sound and a cool idea.

That's fair, but the problem is limited slots - you only get three, and unless you plan ahead each battle, chances are you won't have some of the more niche picks equipped once that rare situation arises.

I can see myself trying it for monsters, yes. Not using that skill much otherwise though because it doesn't fit my playstyle. I like to avoid using Divine Pulse whenever I can, so anything that puts me at risk of having to use it is not something I'll use regularly. Requesting Venin Weapons.

As you can probably tell if you look below my avatar, Echoes is my favourite Fire Emblem, so it shouldn't surprise you that my answer is: YES, ABSOLUTELY. Just like Three Houses, Echoes is fully voice acted, though in my opinion the voice acting here is superior. The presentation in general is fantastic, and I'd even go so far as to say that Echoes actually looks better than Three Houses does. There's tons of interesting systems that you won't find in any other games, my favourite by far being magic costing HP to cast, which allows for some very fun strategies, especially if you make a certain villager a cleric. There's also free DLC items called pitchforks, which let you reclass any of your units, so there's some more replayability than you might initially think.

That reminds me, how about we discuss those? I've never used the venom weapons personally, always viewing them as something that's much better in enemy hands, but maybe someone can come up with a niche for them?

Oh, I know there's the breaker skills, but I wish the weapon triangle was a thing on top of that. Yup, you can. Not enough for some people though, which is why I proposed my idea. I personally don't have too many issues with the monastery stuff, but I feel like a mode like this would be great for those who dislike it. As I said though, it would be a nightmare to program that.

Is this a thing you're actually doing? Or just theorycrafting for fun? In any case, here are some ideas of things I'd like to see implemented from a gameplay perspective: Bring back the weapon triangle Make proficiency abilities passive - i.e. not requiring a skill slot Make bows unable to double at one range Remove gender-locks on classes Add "Conquest" difficulty - a difficulty mode higher than hard which focuses on clever enemy placement and skills rather than pumping up enemy stats. New Gamemode "Back to the Roots": cuts monastery exploration down to a minimum to provide more of a classic Fire Emblem experience. Monastery activities are very limited, but enemy stats are scaled down accordingly. Probably a nightmare to program though.

Gilbert is more geared towards the role of tank than Alois is anyway. Hope he works out for you!

Out of interest, did you play Dedue's paralogue? I feel it adds a lot to his story.

I agree, yes. Some scenes are really robbed of their power due to them not being properly presented. A certain character's off-screen death comes to mind.

While I don't remember that line from Python, I do remember falling off my chair laughing when Mae called Boey a boob, wondering how they actually slipped that in. (and yes, I reckon the word probably has a second meaning, but all I could think of was that Mae just called Boey a tittie)