Search the Community

I've been contributing to Three Houses's page on The Cutting Room Floor for quite a while, and the sheer amount of stuff I have documented in it about scrapped stuff is quite impressive honestly. Something which isn't discussed often however is what some of the stuff found there implies for the game's development, which is kind of the reason this thread was made. Full disclosure: The info I'll speak about has been found and corroborated with people like DeathChaos and the fedatamine.com team, who have hacked and datamined the game. The only thing I've done myself is reporting the unused content they've uncovered in places like TCRF and NIWA’s Fire Emblem wiki, and analyzed the internal number of the game’s voice clips based on a rip someone did of the game’s files some time ago. Also, while this post might be familiar to some as I already posted a previous version of it on reddit, some of the stuff here has been revised and new tidbits were added which might be of interest for some (perhaps?). Without futher ado, let's get to the nitty gritty: 1. Thales, the sword-wielding priest??? In the game’s files there’s an unused agarthan sword called Ridill, whose description flat out states it was meant to be Thales’s signature weapon before Quake Σ took it’s place. While it’s currently unknown if the weapon has a unique model (or if it works at all), it’s interesting to note the description calls Thales a priest, rather than a guru as his class’s description does. I checked the japanese script to see if the sword’s english description happened to be a mistranslation, and it turns out that is not the case! In japanese, the characters used are “祭司“, which can be literally translated as "priest" or "seer". By contrast, Thales’s Agastya class calls him a “導師”, which more or less means “a sage/mage/guru with high authority”, thus it can be translated in far more ways than simply "priest". So yeah, this bit is quite tame overall given it’s mostly about semantics. 2. Cleobulus, the missing(?) agarthan. In the character data, between the generic TWSITD members found in Silver Snow/Verdant Wind’s Shambhala chapter lies an unused minor character boss who goes by the name of Cleobulus. The presence of this scrapped character is intriguing for 2 main reasons: a) Sans Kronya and Odesse, most of the important agarthan members are named after the Seven Sages of Greece, and in the base game there just so happens that there’s seemingly no seventh member to be seen... b) There is also an important agarthan member whose true identity is never revealed in the game: Cornelia, the court mage of Faerghus. While the character data displays the unused agarthan as a male (normally debunking whatever theory one could make about this), I also noticed one of the generic named slitherers (Bias) happens to be internally set a male Holy Knight when in-game they're a Gremory (which is female-locked). So I went and asked DeathChaos some time ago what was up with that, and here's the response I got: 3. Quests would have unlocked everything, even scrapped features. There is an insane amount of unused quests, and a bunch of them were meant for features which are either already available by default, were changed in the game or are simply scrapped. Want to tutor a student? You had to do a quest first. Exchange travelers? Hear the game’s soundtrack in Manuela’s office? Allow your students to do Certification Exams? Repair weapons? You know the drill, and this also applies for scrapped features like riding horses, trading items + getting books through it, unlocking new personal info about your students, etc. 4. Some characters have doppelgänger problems. Besides the already existing variations some characters have for story purposes like !Child Edelgard & Dimitri, there's also a few duplicates of some characters running around which most players have likely already spotted without realizing it: a) The Gilbert that aids you in Chapter 5 is a completely different character from the one you get in Azure Moon. This incidentally explains why he so happens to lack his personal ability during that map. d) The Flame Emperor seen in Chapter 6 is different to the one the game uses for story scenes and Chapter 11 in BL/GD. She seems to exist only so her name can be seen as ??? in the game's dialogue during battle. By contrast, the in-game event engine manually changes the name of the other Emperor to ??? during story scenes. c) Chapter 12 for some odd reason uses a completely different Edelgard compared to the one that's playable. While I'm not exactly sure why that's the case, I did notice that the stats she boasts in that mission are barely any higher compared to the previous chapter... d) Lastly, both the masked and playable Jeritza added via DLC are internally considered their own separate entity. The former has barely any data to speak of and doesn't even have a personal skill, though interestingly, he does bear a Minor Crest of Lamine similar to his playable self. 5. Many story scenarios and set pieces were likely planned in advance, way before their triggers were even implemented. The internal order of story events and the voice clips surrounding them are fascinating to analyze, as it might shred light on the how some stuff was implemented into the game plus the time it was implemented into development. For example: Ever wondered why the Blue Lions and Golden Deer routes get a scene prior to the Holy Tomb event with the Flame Emperor reveal which the Black Eagles don't have? Well, internally, Edelgard's coronation is located right next to those events, which suggests her scene is meant to serve as a counterpart of sorts. Caspar and Linhardt's lines as enemies on the event prior to the Fort Merceus mission from Verdant Wind actually originate from the Silver Snow route, as not only that version of the event comes first internally, the voice clips used are also located in the area where their Church route story clips are located. This also happens to double as leftovers of a scrapped feature Silver Snow had at one point where the Black Eagles who fell in Part 1 of Classic Mode showed up in Part 2 as enemies later (the devs didn't do a good job at scrubbing it, truth be told). Dedue’s return in Azure Moon was planned way before his paralogue was made, and that includes Felix & Annette’s scrapped defection as their clips are located in the area of their Blue Lion story clips lie. Lorenz’s scrapped defection on Verdant Wind has his battle clips against Claude in both the Azure Moon and Verdant Wind’s version of Chapter 16, while the monastery exploration clips where the Hilda, Raphael and Marianne acknowledge his demise exist only for Verdant Wind. Of course, this also begs the question: what scenarios were added late in development then? The short answer is: everything related to paralogues, including the Death Knight/Jeritza’s unlockable death scene in Azure Moon, as the location of its voice clips suggests it was added right after their paralogue was finished (AKA way after Azure Moon was finished). This incidentally also corroborates what a previous developer interview said about Mercedes: 6. Gronder Field 2? In my Silver Snow? It’s more likely than you think. Anyone who has played the Silver Snow route knows that its story conveniently skips the Gronder Field 2 battle and the whole month in which happens because of reasons. In spite of this, there is actual circumstantial evidence pointing the devs briefly considered giving said route their own version of that chapter: a) One of the two unused maps in the game is set to load Gronder Field 2 as the battleground, is internally called as a Chapter 17 of some undefined route, and only contains enemy and deployment placeholders only for the Black Eagles slot, while the other 2 slots for Azure Moon and Verdant Wind are empty (in case anyone wonders, both Silver Snow and Crimson Flower share the same slot internally when loading a specific map, meaning it’s entirely possible though hacking to load any map from SS into CF and make it work with mostly no issues). b) A specific map having data for only one route is a quirk which only exist for route-exclusive missions like the ones from Crimson Flower and Azure Moon, while everything else which is shared between 2 or more routes (like most of part 1 & 2 + the chapters shared between the Church and Claude’s routes) have data filled in their 2/3 slots respectively. c) In the monastery exploration script, there is one empty slot between the Silver Snow and Azure Moon routes. Had a proper Chapter 17 been added into into SS, the only data which would’ve needed to be repointed to preserve a consistent internal order would’ve been only the stuff concerning Silver Snow’s exploration. d) There is an awkward difficulty spike between Silver Snow’s Chapter 16 and 17 where the enemy’s levels go up by 4 instead of 2. This issue doesn’t exist in Azure Moon and Verdant Wind as the Gronder Field 2 battle makes sure the transition between each chapter is slightly more smooth stat-wise. e) 10 Placeholder event slots exist between the story and paralogue stuff, so adding more story scenes to Silver Snow without messing up anything afterwards would've been possible (there are also 16 more placeholders between the paralogues and Cindered Shadows, but I don't know if those existed prior to the release of the DLC). 7. "Wait, one of the two unused maps? What’s the other one about?" The second unused map has the same enemy and deployment data as the first one, with the difference it loads Fort Merceus as a battle location and it internally calls itself as a Chapter 18 of a non-defined route. Unfortunately, there’s very little evidence suggesting plans for that one. If I had to make a guess though, I dare say the Fort Merceus infiltrations for Silver Snow and Verdant Wind were planned to be far more distinct at first before both maps where combined into one spot. This is 100% conjecture from my part though, so there’s a good chance I might be wrong. 8. "What about Crimson Flower? Could have Gronder 2 or Fort Merceus been planned for that route?" Location wise, the battle script of the Crimson Flower's maps (Chapter 12-17) is all gathered together after Verdant Wind and before the paralogues. Meanwhile, CF's exploration script comes after Part 1 but before Silver Snow, Azure Moon and Verdant Wind's, so overall I find very unlikely those unused maps could have been planned for Edelgard's route. 9. Crimson Flower was likely saved for last (before the paralogues) and thus rushed, NOT unfinished. Before getting into this, I think it's important to clarify the distinction between the words rushed and unfinished, as they have different implications in spite of being used interchangeably by many. Rushed means some action/object was made hastily and under a low interval of time. Unfinished meanwhile, more or less indicates some action, product or something was never finished or given any conclusion of sorts. With that out of the way, let's talk about the 2 points which suggests Crimson Flower fits the former description rather than the latter. a) Scrapped class sprites of Rhea and Dimitri sporting their unique appearances in CF is the only thing left unused for that route on launch, and Jeritza as a whole was more or less left as a huge blank both story and data wise before the post launch updates happened. By contrast, the other 3 routes have quite the amount of unused story, battle dialogue and scrapped defection situations. b) While most story events are internally listed in chronological order for Silver Snow, Azure Moon and Verdant Wind (sort of, it kinda jumps at the middle of each one before wrapping them up later), Crimson Flower instead has its own not only listed after all three, but also has its very last event listed in the data be the scene in which Rhea attacks Byleth and kickstarts the time skip. I think it goes without saying what this implies given how the route's well known at this point for lacking animated cutscenes besides the ending. Before wrapping up, here are some honorable mentions I didn't consider huge enough to deserve their own spotlight: Scrapped dialogue & voiceclips suggest Silver Snow's Endgame was even harder at one point, as they point out the player would have needed to seize 3 separate reinforcement spots rather than just 1 to stop the White Beasts from spawning. The enemy Death Knight class is capable of teaching a playable unit the Heartseeker skill once mastered. This is the only case where an enemy only class can do so, as not even the Flame Emperor class (which is a palette/model swap of Edelgard's Armored Lord class) can do it. Speaking of Death Knight, after the Wave 3 update, data was added in CF's Chapter 12's exploration to make Jeritza/Emile appear in it to say hi and confirm he's the Death Knight earlier, which was dummied out. Regarding the unused maps mentioned earlier, those happen to be the only ones which deliberately call for Female Byleth in the deployment slots (by comparison, the game runs a code to swap Male Byleth for the Female one if it checks she was chosen at the start of the game in the other maps). Given that some cutscene stuff suggest !FByteth was added later in development, there's a huge chance the devs used those maps to test her out. So…yeah. If I had to describe this game's development with a few words, I dare say Intelligent Systems and Koei Tecmo tried to bite far, far more than they could chew with this one. I mean, it's well known the game was delayed twice so... (Also there's still far more unused stuff I didn't cover here. The iceberg goes deep folks!)

Before you read further we should understand the rules by which this Tier-List was made and the restrictions/considerations that went into it. They are as follows: 1) The game is played on New Game, not New Game+ 2) No paid DLC items/benefits/characters can be used. 3) Efficient, but not LTC level play is assumed. 4) The Tier List represents my evaluation of unit performance on Maddening Mode throughout Crimson Flower after 6 playthroughs of the route. My fastest run is 19:57 with a healthy amount of messing around/testing/unnecessary exploration/doing unnecessary paralogues. I'm still mapping out a lot of the details but It's more than possible to shave 4-6 hours off of this time. S+ Tier: Edelgard: Not too much to say about this one, it should be fairly uncontroversial. She hits like a train, has access to the Peg-Knight Class, has Monster Breaker for big-hits, near-perfect availability, decent growths, and easy access to the Wyvern class line for flying and a Class-fare. Amyr is also hilariously broken, to add. Too bad her personal classes are garbage. F!Byleth: In my opinion, easy access to the Lance of Ruin (LOR) from her ability to recruit Slyvain with no requirements other than being female (lol) is the main thing that makes F!Byleth better than M!Byleth. She also can become a Peg-Knight, which is amazing for the ability to fly and access to Darting Blow. Sylvain is also an amazing guard-adjutant; recruit him before the Miklan chapter, get him a single level during said chapter and promote him to armour-knight when you're able to. On another note, She and Edlegard are among a select few who can reliably survive being exposed on enemy-phase without the use of Impenetrable Wall/Blessing, especially in the early/mid-game where it matters most. The Sword of the Creator is meh in the early game due to its weight but its 1-2 range and special Combat Art are nice. Though if you're attacking at range you're better off using an Iron Bow+ for the accuracy/lighter weight/lower cost and Curved Shot access unless you are also are exposing her on enemy phase without any means to switch her weapon. I generally focus on lances/axes on F!Byleth because of promotion requirements. The Sublime Creator Sword is fairly decent when you get it, though I rarely find myself using it. F!Byleth is solid all around, it's hard to go wrong here unless you make her a mage. Bernadetta: Probably the most controversial placement on this list. She is carried almost entirely by her early access to the Vengeance Combat Art, Pass Skill, and high-average Dexterity. Bernie's Vengeance has a C+ Lance rank requirement and synergizes well with her personal skill; this is easy to get before Chapter 5 with her boon in Lances. Bernie has easy access to the Cavalier and Peg-Knight classes early on, as well. She's one of the few units on your squad in the early game that can dish out heavy single attack damage, all she needs is a steel lance/bow and her personal skill activated for her to deal 20+ damage with Tempest Lance in the first few chapters The damage formula for Vengeance is as follows: (Missing HP + 2). This seems unassuming at first but is incredibly powerful. This means her attack value, when using this combat art, scales off her HP and STR, so her mediocre growths in those areas are almost entirely offset by their combined value and ability to boost to a class' stat bases. That said, she'll be able to use Training Lances and One-Hit-Kill (OHK) nearly every enemy generic throughout the game with 100% accuracy from the moment she unlocks Vengeance. Toss her the accuracy ring and a +hit battalion and you'll seldom need to think about accuracy. Continuing, the Paladin class has a base STR of 17 and a class modifier of +2 for a minimum physical attack value of 19. This boost, in conjunction with other modifiers like the HP +5 skill (the early game skill most people switch out) that effectively acts as a Fare-skill, battalions, strong weapons, HP boosters (Seraph robes also give her what is effectively +5 attack) and you can get to some insane numbers. Why is this important? Because every CF post-time skip map is defeat boss(es) and can be cleared quickly with warp/stride setups. She just so happens to be one of the few units who can reliably OHK even the most dangerous enemies in the game. Bernie also has access to the Pass skill via her Budding Talent. You can use this to ride/fly right through enemy formations that would otherwise hinder other potential boss killers. She also gets an insane attack bonus from the Paladin promotion due to the minimum strength stat adjustment in addition to the Class' HP boost and Lance-fare. Let's assume that you did Alois' easily one-turnable paralogue and gave Bernie the Seraph Robe you get from it. We're now at C12 and Bernie is a level 23 Paladin with roughly 41+5 HP, 20 STR and has a D-Rank battalion (Lv. 5 Empire Pegasus Co. ) that gives her +4 attack and +15 hit. Let's give her the LOR (22mt weapon) and the Str + 2 skill as well. After factoring in a STR rally, her personal skill, and other variables, this Bernie has, when using Vengeance, an attack value of 109. What does this mean in practice? !Maddening C12 Seteth has a maximum physical endurance of 97. Bernie can easily OHK him. !Maddening C12 Rhea has a maximum physical endurance of 90. Bernie can easily OHK her. Pass is useful to reach her easily. !Maddening C14 Claude has a maximum physical endurance of 92. Bernie can easily OHK him for a two-turn clear. !Maddening C15 Seteth has a maximum physical endurance of 114. Bernie is the only unit in the game who can reliably reach this value by this point in the game without grinding levels and/or stat boosters and/or getting RNG blessed. Use the +3 HP meals (which stack) to boost yourself to that number if you need to. Pass is useful to reach him easily and clear the chapter in 5-6 turns with a stride/warp setup. !Maddening C17 Rhea has a maximum physical endurance of ‭118‬. Use a +3 meal if you need to. Bernie, again, can easily OHK her by the time you reach this point assuming she gets average level-ups as a Paladin/Flier. !Maddening C17 Dimitri has a maximum physical endurance of 117. Bernie can easily OHK him by time you reach this chapter. This map can also be cleared reliably in 5-6 turns by setting up stride and warp; it can be cleared in 1-3 turns if you're willing to do some Amyr RNG abusing with an above-average strength Edelgard. This methods also ensures you don't need to survive a round against his 85 physical attack and 39 attack speed. There is a multitude of bosses that are far less durable than those listed above; Bernie easily slaps them and almost every generic you'll come across. Those that don't such as bosses with extreme physical durability like Gwendal and Gilbert are easily dispatched with effective weapons and magic. The main downside to using her in this way is that she has no enemy phase presence, restricts the use of fortify (if you're even using it) and cannot ever take a counter. However, this is almost a non-issue in an efficient playthrough as everyone except your dedicated combat units will get ORKO'd by Maddening mode enemies without the use of Impenetrable Wall/Blessing; you will need to find a way to keep people safe regardless. Thankfully FETH Maddening is among, if not the most player-phase oriented game in the franchise. She's best off of course as a Cav/Paladin/Flier, all of which have Canto and good movement; these traits in conjunction with the Pass Skill help in making sure she's safe after assassinating a target of your choice. TL:DR Contrary to the opinions of many, especially those of more prominent figures in the community, Bernie starts OHK'ing the vast majority enemies from the moment she gets Vengeance (which she can have as early as Chapter 4) and has myriad ways to reach OHK thresholds for many of every route's most dangerous bosses. She enables fast clears of CF Maddening (and Maddening in general) with minimal grinding/setup/thinking involved. She doesn't require any additional skills to function, unlike most other combat units which all pine for Death Blow and Darting Blow. The only skills she benefits strongly from is Hit+20 which is overkill in most cases if you're setting up linked-attacks for boss kills. Most units in my runs don't even promote to an advanced class before it's over. Bernie is 10/10 on CF and 9.5/10 on the other three routes. Two other units (Dedue and Cyril) also have Vengeance (both units need A-rank lances) but do not have the other traits that allow Bernie to make such excellent use of the Combat Art. PS: You can use guard-adjutants, shields, enemy bow users with poison strikes, rusted weapons (so that Bernie gets doubled), battalions and/or devil weapons to ensure Bernie gets dropped to 1HP with minimal difficulty. S Tier: M!Byleth: Mostly the same as F!Byleth, just without early flying access (which hurts) and early access to the LOR and a decent guard-adjutant in Sylvain. He does have access to Quick-Reposite but isn't that useful as he will usually be strong enough to not need it by the time you get it (which is late in the game as War-Master is a Master Class). Dorothea: Heal, physic and 1-3 range magic damage in the early game is useful. She doesn't require any special treatment if you're planning on using her as a dancer. Arguably, she's probably the best dancer option because of her high natural charm (don't have to worry about failing the dance contest/getting charm screwed) and access to the Meteor spell. She's able to equip Meteor to give an accuracy and evasion boost via supports to any of your units that enter combat in her range; it also helps with gambit damage/accuracy. She also has a boon in Black Magic which can help her hit A-Rank easier. She's fairly important in clearing maps quickly, setting up linked-attacks for boss kills, and just improving the reliability of any attack. Giving her the Thyrsus can also help with this (I don't use any combat mages so there isn't any competition for the item). A Tier: Linhart: Has warp, perfect availability, and a solid support spell list. He can also chip if you need him to. Can't really go wrong here. Manuela: She has Warp. That's enough for an A-Rank. Use her silence/ward spells to level up while other people do stuff. I suggest unlocking the magic +2 skill for slightly larger warp range, as well. Felix: I usually don't focus swords on Byleth but requirement Felix is usually worth it. You can get him fairly easily with a C or B support. He auto levels well and if recruited around C10-12 he'll be in a position to start scaling with a bit of favouritism/attention. Unlike other units, this favouritism translates into a fairly powerful unit. He also has supports with Sylvain (guard adjutant) and Ingrid (flying adjutant) that give him +1 attack per support level. Heavy Draw (+8) damage is also a decent combat art. I generally class change from Mercenary to archer then assassin then Wyvern rider or Sniper once he's gained enough skill ranks. He's among the few combat units worth using in a ground-locked class. B Tier: Ferdinand Von Aegir - team debuffer/buffer. I only use Byleth/Edelgard/Felix/Jeritiza as combat units so Ferdie doesn't get enough EXP to be combat viable. Swift-strikes is cool but requires A-Rank Lances, which sucks. I generally make him a Cavalier, give him a guard adjutant, and let him use Shatter Slash with Seal Speed to cripple select targets in the early/mid-game. This combination can make Golem/Monster-slaying really easy as well. His Crest also has a %30 chance to let him prevent a counter-attack, which is nice but never necessary. His Dex rally can help Bernie/Edel/F!Byleth reach 100% accuracy for boss kills, as well. Ingrid: She auto-levels like a beast and has generally goods stats all around. She usually has decent charm that synergizes well with her personal skill, making for a reliable offensive gambit user. She's arguably not worth training as a combat unit but she can definitely chip/finish off enemies. She has attack boosting supports with Felix and Sylvain, which can be useful. Her paralogue is also amazing as it gets you a flying B-rank battalion, the Luin (17 MT lance), and a devil weapon, along with some other less important items. This is one of the few paralogues worth doing. Jeritiza: By the time you get him you should have a team situated to clear the rest of the game. He's strong and has decent skill-ranks across the board. Lysithea: Don't recruit her pre-time skip. You can recruit her in C14 and deploy her in the month of C15 onward. She's level 29 when you recruit her post-time-skip and has excellent magic (29 at base). It is worth it to use a knowledge gem and do a single auxiliary battle to quickly get her access to Warp. It doesn't matter much if she's a Gremory or Bishop, she's only useful for the X2 Warp uses. You only get to use her for the last few chapters but she's far better than she otherwise would be compared to a pre-time skip recruitment due to not needing to feed her exp, not taking up a deployment slot, or risk her getting RNG-screwed. If you don't need the extra Warper then just bench her. Shamir: Decent option to fill a slot on your team if you need it. She has the earliest access to Hunter's Volley which can be nice. C Tier: Slyvain: Not worth using on his own in my opinion but he makes an excellent guard adjutant as he auto-levels in axes. Attach him to someone who needs a guard adjutant or someone like Felix to get the most mileage out of him. His paralogue also gives a stride battalion and the LOR if you didn't recruit him before the Miklan chapter and refuse to give the LOR to Rhea. Ashe: Auto levels in axes which means that he's a good option for a guard adjutant. He is recruited via Charm/Lances which is easy enough if you're playing F!Byleth. His paralogue can be cleared quickly with preparation, it also gives a consumable item that grants +1 move. It is debatable whether it's worth doing, though. Alois: Strength/luck rally. Use him as a guard adjutant when not rallying. Annette: Is kind of a pain to recruit, but her speed/str rally is useful. Though the speed boost is seldom relevant. She can be a backup gambit user as she auto-levels in authority. Petra: She usually ends up too frail and weak to fight efficiently on Maddening, she has no strong niches to compensate for this short-coming. Hubert: Huburt is super useful even at a low level. Mire can inflict -6 DEF on an enemy from 3-range. He can deal decent chip damage in the early game, debuff, and immobilize enemies; he has an easier time doing this with range boosting items like the Thrysus. You could have 1-6 range with the Valkryie Class but that's DLC so RIP. D Tier: Leonie: She can make a decent combat unit and auto-levels well. There are simply better combat units with more useful niches/traits. Hanneman: Meh. He's a decent mage with access to Meteor which I suppose lets him function as a dancer. I haven't found a good use for him, perhaps someone has a non-meme setup for him. Lorenz: Only useful for the Thyrsus. His paralogue can easily be cleared in 1-2 turns with stride and fliers. He can do some funny things with battalion vantage if you train him as a magic unit due to most magic users having high single attack damage. E Tier: Ignatz: He has what is probably the best personal skill in the game in Hit +20. I'm trying to find some uses for him but haven't had much success. Mercedes: You don't need another long-term healer. To be fair, she is hands down the best no-nonsense healer in the game (Fortify/Physic/Heal/Restore). I always ask her to assist with missions in the early game as her ability to deal decent chip damage and heal with physic is nice. She doesn't siphon exp away from your main squad like what would be the case with offense units you might ask for mission assistance. Marianne: Mostly the same as above, just slightly worse. Raph: You don't need a bulky male fighter-type character. He's good if you're playing casually but is mostly useless in a fast play-through. Casper: Male fighter with no redeeming traits. Among the worst units in the game along with Dedue and Raph. Flayn was excluded for what I hope are obvious reasons. Feel free to disagree/offer suggestions, just keep it civil.