Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes - Mysterious Mercenary Trailer

[eclipse]

2 hours ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

I find it odd that noone is commenting on just how hard this soundtrack friggin slaps. Koei's metal renditions are usually great, but this is exceptional and I want the soundtrack now.

H-hey, that's part of the reason why I went from "okay" to "I'm going to fix my joycons before this comes out and nothing in the world will stop me."

Fun fact: Every house has an axe user.  So I went by the non-axe user to figure out who I liked.  And that would be Hubert, by a mile.  Sorry, Claude, you're going to have to wait.  Again.

[Fabulously Olivier]

4 minutes ago, eclipse said:

H-hey, that's part of the reason why I went from "okay" to "I'm going to fix my joycons before this comes out and nothing in the world will stop me."

Fun fact: Every house has an axe user.  So I went by the non-axe user to figure out who I liked.  And that would be Hubert, by a mile.  Sorry, Claude, you're going to have to wait.  Again.

And it's all per tradition. I can't tell you how many times I replayed the E3 trailer for Three Houses to listen to that theme. That dark rendition of the FE theme with an angel and demon chanting, then that epic base drop gives me chills every time.

[DefyingFates]

25 minutes ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

And it's all per tradition. I can't tell you how many times I replayed the E3 trailer for Three Houses to listen to that theme. That dark rendition of the FE theme with an angel and demon chanting, then that epic base drop gives me chills every time.

Don't forget all the recreations that popped up almost at once! That's the mark of a good theme!

30 minutes ago, eclipse said:

Fun fact: Every house has an axe user.  So I went by the non-axe user to figure out who I liked.  And that would be Hubert, by a mile.  Sorry, Claude, you're going to have to wait.  Again.

Oh, yeah! And sorry Claude. So that's the kind of person you're into, Eclipse... (Not complaining though, Robbie Daymond is incredible.)

Edited April 12, 2022 by DefyingFates

[eclipse]

12 minutes ago, DefyingFates said:

Oh, yeah! And sorry Claude. So that's the kind of person you're into, Eclipse... (Not complaining though, Robbie Daymond is incredible.)

Nah, it was the magic that did it.  Nothing like hurling a whole lot of faceless troops up in the air and then Gravity-ing them back to reality (wrong series, but that's what popped into my mind).  Though I hope Claude's lines are better in the actual game, they felt a little flat to me in the trailer.

[Azz]

Here is a new article that pretty much details what happened in the trailer but also contains HQ images of the lords and their retainers:

https://news.denfaminicogamer.jp/news/2204122c

Spoiler

 

[tipperthescales]

Finally got around to watching the whole trailer second by second (or something) and have a ...rather long analysis. I didn't really go into the opening fight between Shez and Byleth since there's not much to add other than it being a parallel to the end of Trailer 1 except with Shez getting dunked on.

Spoiler

0:19 A remix of the Main Theme of FE3H.
0:21-0:22 This sounds like Male Shez.
0:30-0:31 Again likely Male Shez talking here.
0:32-0:37 Confirmation of a gender choice for Shez.
0:38 In terms of the player HUD, there are four separate bars: HP in green, Warrior in yellow, possibly an Awakening equivalent in white on the character portrait, and then an orange bar that's next to two sword icons. I'm speculating this is some sort of either durability or combat art timer bar. The minimap has a lot of icons similar to the first FEW with triangle matchup arrows (though they appear reversed compared with FEW; I'll bring this up later), forts / outposts / chests and captains.
0:40 Whatever this special Shez is using, it either consumes the sword icon, or disables it from being used. The orange bar is empty. The purple overlay on the sword strikes may suggest Dark element for this attack (as he has normal sword lines beforehand).
0:50 Confirming Edelgard again has a predominant Fire effect on her combos (is this an effect of her Sacred Weapon potentially?), as previously seen. Given the choice of shield she's likely in Armoured Lord class.
0:54 Confirmation of Hubert. Ferdinand appears to be facing Hubert - the pauldron is certainly reminiscent of his timeskip design.
0:55 There's a few icons on the minimap that I don't recognise, but I suspect the crowns are commanders; the warning symbol I don't recognise, and Hubert isn't in a class that can sustain effective damage right now.
1:00 Dimitri seems to be following Chrom with Thunder element (associated with Areadbhar?) and a fair amount of ground destruction in his combos.
1:04 Confirmation of Dedue now with sideburns and stubble (and minus scars).
1:06-1:07 You can see in Dedue's initial standard combo chain, the orange bar slowly recovers, and note he has a shield icon that's faded out. Immediately after this the clip changes to one where he slams his shield into the ground, expending a full orange bar and consuming one shield icon.
1:10 Claude has Wind element on his attacks (again as expected, and probably tied to the Failnaught). Interestingly he stands up on his wyvern at 1:12 during the attack.
1:15 Confirmation of Hilda.
1:17 There are 3rd army captains on the minimap in yellow. Interestingly Hilda doesn't have an orange bar, instead having two yellow bars instead. Friekugel seems to have Thunder element, and some of these combo chains remind me of Lissa's...
1:20 On activation of Warrior Special, Hilda deplete 1.5 of those lower yellow bars and it gains that orange hue back. Her laugh at the end plus the wink really drives home the Lissa comparison to me, lol
1:23 Music change to a remixed Chasing Daybreak. Rhea seems to be torching Alliance grunts.
1:26 Hi Flayn. Immediately after this an unclear faction (though I suspect Church given the silver helmets) is assaulted by rather ominous looking dark magic circles (Agarthan?). Clearly the Empire and Church soldiers at 1:28 are terrified as well.
1:30 A blink and you'll miss it moment, but the chapter / mission seems to be called 'The Blitz of Riegan'. Assuming I'm reading the landmarks correctly, the home base for the player here is the Great Bridge of Myrddin. It looks like you need to take conquest of each zone before adjacent ones open up, on the way to the main battle marked with the golden chess piece / cross piece. There is an Anna spot in the top right zone, making me wonder if she will return to her role back in FEW (and perhaps even similar unlock criteria?).
1:33 Presumably the small tasks located in each zone only become active once the zone is conquered; and it seems likely that some of them are once only affairs (compare the far left zone nearest Myrddin and the newly captured zone with the merchant).
1:35 Note that we get 3 Advanced Seals. I know that elsewhere it's now confirmed free classing is available across the cast, but if we didn't know that it'd still be odd to accumulate this sort of number for each small event if only Shez had class changing.
1:37 Nothing new, but again the enemy level for these battles is very low which means this is a very early battle chronologically despite occurring at the conclusion of White Clouds in the source game.
1:39 There's a lot here to take in. The leftmost icons obviously represent different aspects of planning ahead of the battle to unfold, though I could only guess what most of these icons represent (the more straightforward ones seem to be the grid for Deployment, the armour for Equipment, the papers for Data - save / load, the cog for Options, the back arrow as... Back, and the crossed blades for Start Battle).
The map itself has a few icons of interest, namely green commander like icons in the middles, and triple down arrow / chevron icons surrounding them. Note that Edelgard is selected and is a Fortress Knight with 0/3 stars of what I suspect is class proficiency (more on that later). Note how she has an up arrow next to lances? This makes me wonder if the display for this is reversed compared with the original FEW where the weapon type that you had advantage against had downward arrows. I'm led to believe that the ! marks above different weapon and class types represents their frequency on the map.
Also note that Edelgard's Sacred Weapon is the Labraunda, and that she holds two healing items.
We can see Hubert's minimap icon here as well, unfortunately the fourth character is obscured.
Lastly, co-op is confirmed with the P2 Can Join! prompt.
On switching to Shez, you can see that you can't change him out or position him in another deployment slot. Note he has a double up arrow against axes, and the map updates to reflect the presence of a lot of them on the map. Maybe some of these axe units have armour effective weapons, and that is why Edelgard has three downward arrows against them? Note Shez's unique class of Fluegel (pointed out by others as Wing in German), with a giant wreathed star - has he mastered the class?
1:40 Another massive page to analyse. Note the top options of Set Equipment / Set Abilities / Change Class (the last being another clue to class changing being probably applicable to more than just Shez, but again we already have confirmation it's global). Interestingly, there doesn't seem to be an option to actually change the weapon used on the screen we see here.
Note that equipped Combat Arts have R + (face button) as a command, which feels in line with games such as Fate/Extella Link and I believe Persona 5 Strikers? The use of a grid showing the effective range of Combat Arts is a cute nod to how Gambits displayed AND how technically characters fit on a grid in FE3H (though no-one ever actually zoomed in that far to play the maps, lol). Might is a straightforward abstract representation of damage, the icons on the right are probably abilities or effects - the Wrath Strike one somewhat resembles the Fang Crest (damage through guard), and the Windsweep one like is just Wind element. More interestingly is Cooldown Time and Durability Cost, of which the former is clear to understand, but the latter isn't. There's no indication of a weapon break mechanic so far, so what exactly does durability represent? And if it is the orange bar, why can it recover itself over time? Firesweep has Fire element and Blizzard the Ice element. I believe Blizzard has the same effective range as how the spell appeared in FE3H.
1:42 Battalions return along with Authority; how exactly isn't clear in this trailer itself (the previous trailer showing Claude fighting a Demonic Beast might have those Alliance troops as his Battalion). Endurance doesn't at yet appear to have a tangible representation.
Note how assigning the Empire Warriors (an Axe battalion) gives Shez Resist Lances, which covers the natural disadvantage Swords have against Lances. This might be why in the earlier map screen, Shez did not have weakness to Lance wielding enemies.
Switching to Empire Duelists (Sword battalion) changes this to Resist Axes, if for whatever reason you wanted to absolutely dominate Axes as a Sword unit.
1:44 I know I'm not liking this giant popup for a main mission. Here's hoping we can minimise it like in the original FEW. Edelgard appears to be in the top left of the map. I'm not too sure what the purple squares represent.
1:47 A few things: you can briefly see Edelgard here is an Armoured Lord. Then the active character switches to Monica (!!) as a Mage. Note that there is a Guard option just before the Other menu is opened, that has a blue icon with a character holding a sword; this is also present on the All-Out Defense option (is this to set Monica to stick with Edelgard and defend her once you switch to another character?). Note the option of Assign to Adjutant (this will be brought up later). The video continues to show Monica selecting Heal, with the icon of her Order to heal Edelgard appearing accordingly; the icon is similar to how I recall it in the original FEW.
The character with the bow above + Return to Battle is most likely Bernadetta, which you can tell by her distinctive embroidered shoulder which is also present on her timeskip minimap icon in FE3H.
There are coloured pots in green, yellow and orange, which may correlate to refills for HP / Warrior gauge / whatever the orange gauge is.
You can see the objective targets circled in green.
1:48 Monica has Wind Caller's Genesis as her weapon, which raises a few questions about if she has a Crest (specifically, of Macuil), and why is there a Sacred Weapon associated with Macuil. The other character in the Crooked Highroad stronghold appears to be a generic Mage or Cleric, but note they are not circled in blue and thus not a playable character.
1:50 This is the image from the Amazon JP page. Again, not too sure what the battle forecast is actually reflecting. Note that in this battle Shez has NOT mastered Fluegel.
1:51 Claude becomes Shez's adjutant. Given that R at least has a different function (for Combat Arts), I wonder what the button input setting the Adjutant would be on the battle screen. The icons definitely hark back to Pair Up from the original FEW, and the subsequent footage shows both an Adjutant Attack and an Adjutant Defence in action. Both have their own cooldowns.
1:55 Partner Specials are likely just Pair Up Specials from the original FEW.
1:59-2:00 Finally we're not chained to the monastery, lol. Definitely still a Monastery analogue though. I don't think the music transition to the opening section of Chasing Daybreak is smooth but rather an overlay, but we will see.
2:03-2:04 Not too sure how exactly the Training Grounds works, but in any case it seems to improve class proficiency.
2:06-2:10 As if there weren't enough hints from before, Class Change is back, though only Shez is shown here. The Japanese website confirms it for all characters.
2:11-2:12 Hi Lorenz (with actually decent hair for once). This event seems to mimic the Group Tasks from FE3H.
2:13 Also a screenshot from Amazon JP, Mercedes (bless) with Dimitri sharing a meal with Shez.
2:15 A bit more free roaming in the Base Camp.
2:16 Transitioning to one of the sections of a Between Heaven and Earth remix.
2:20 Clearly someone of importance to Almyra, but having not played Verdant Wind I don't have any educated guesses here.
2:22 Dimitri casually no selling dark magic like he actually had a Res stat, lol.
2:23 This arm could be Rodrigue.
2:25 I wonder how Dimitri was incapacitated enough to have Shez help carry them...
A brief snippet of Edelgard and Dimitri also not in opposition here.
2:27 Monica is seen next to Shez as he chats with Edelgard.
2:29 Edelgard has a different shield here, but it's not a generic Armour Knight or Fortress Knight shield, nor her one as Armoured Lord or Emperor
2:32-2:33 Likely Holst on the basis of pink hair and a Crest of Goneril on his cape. He is fighting a light blue haired War Master who I suspect is General Bergliez.
2:34 We hear Arval speak for the first time in this trailer, while Shez has three different scenes with the house leaders.
2:40 And Arval in the flesh(?).
2:51-2:52 Selectable Byleth gender.
2:57 Remix of The Edge of Dawn.

Overall I'm incredibly stoked as to how the game will play out from a mechanical viewpoint, as it seems to tie what made the original FEW a solid musou title together with distinctive FE3H flavour and some interesting mechanical additions (Combat Arts and whatever the hell is up with durability, Battalions), and the narrative does seem to draw a lot more inspiration from the series that this is a spinoff of(though I am wondering if there is some sort of unifying end to the three branches...)

Byleth's role is also a bit nebulous with the information we have on hand, and I currently share sentiment that it'd be odd to give them the choice of gender and then not do anything with it.

Let me know if you want a visual reference for any of the timestamps.

Edited April 12, 2022 by tipperthescales

[Fabulously Olivier]

If Anna and Monica are playable, the Wolves had better be. Don't you dare deny me my pack!

[Azz]

I would imagine the wolves will be playing, though I wouldn't be surprised if they end up being dlc again. Hopefully not

[Etrurian emperor]

Also when the dragon attacks you can see a regular mook and an Imperial mook kinda cling to each other looking scared. Could this be Gatekeeper and his twin?

[Sentinel07]

12 hours ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

I find it odd that noone is commenting on just how hard this soundtrack friggin slaps. Koei's metal renditions are usually great, but this is exceptional and I want the soundtrack now.

I mean, Koei Tecmo delivering good music is nothing new. 😄

And to answer another of your posts, I'm also surprised at how surprised many are at split paths. Split paths is textbook Dynasty Warriors.

[Seazas]

The wolves are definitely being DLC. They are afterthoughts.

[Fabulously Olivier]

4 hours ago, Sentinel07 said:

I mean, Koei Tecmo delivering good music is nothing new. 😄

And to answer another of your posts, I'm also surprised at how surprised many are at split paths. Split paths is textbook Dynasty Warriors.

It isn't. But the original FEW didn't quite deliver on that front when you consider just how good FE soundtracks are.

[ciphertul]

31 minutes ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

It isn't. But the original FEW didn't quite deliver on that front when you consider just how good FE soundtracks are.

Yea, FEWs music wasn’t its strongest point.

[Jacien]

17 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

Thanks. Now just to see if the protagonist is actually a robotic celery related to Terrako; if that actually happened, I'd be really surprised.

Oh, yeah; that's definitely another reason why the split routes is surprising. 

 

Don't remind me of Age of Calamity; that game was a massive waste of potential; an actual prequel to BOTW, like what they advertised, could have been truly amazing. Mercifully, this game at least doesn't seem to have any pretentions of being anything other than a crossover spin-off.

Exactly what could’ve been done with a “actual prequel”? Besides the hordes of guardians at Hateno, there’s really nothing to be had with a prequel. There were no active battles going on, Link was just escorting Zelda to places, maybe some small skirmishes with monsters. Before the calamity was very peaceful, the kingdom was excavating, Link was chilling in places, and Zelda was taking baths. But otherwise nothing happened, and it would’ve just been a retread of the story we already know and saw through all the BotW memories. 

[Fabulously Olivier]

One concern I have is that I've noticed Combat Arts have a durability cost. That could be bad. Weapon degradation as it is understood in FE or BotW has no place in a hack and slash game like this, and could singlehandedly ruin the game.

 

Right now, I'm working under the assumption that either:

A) Weapon durability decreases per battle, not per hit, and is accelerated by using combat arts. (Less likely)

Or

B) Weapon durability is those glowing weapon icons by the character portrait - a limited per-battle resource with each weapon icon representing 10 durability (more likely).

[Dark Holy Elf]

I kinda doubt that weapon degradation would be a thing for normal combat, because as you said that feels pretty at odds with how Warriors works. It's possible it could just be for Combat Arts, though? Essentially limiting how many times you can use those per battle.

4 hours ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

It isn't. But the original FEW didn't quite deliver on that front when you consider just how good FE soundtracks are.

Personally I was a big fan of FEW1's music. Blows most regular FE soundtracks away in my opinion. (But I'm definitely not as high as general FE music as you... honestly until Fates there wasn't any FE soundtrack I would consider myself a particularly big fan of.) New game's soundtrack sounds great too so far, though!

[vanguard333]

12 hours ago, Jacien said:

Exactly what could’ve been done with a “actual prequel”? Besides the hordes of guardians at Hateno, there’s really nothing to be had with a prequel. There were no active battles going on, Link was just escorting Zelda to places, maybe some small skirmishes with monsters. Before the calamity was very peaceful, the kingdom was excavating, Link was chilling in places, and Zelda was taking baths. But otherwise nothing happened, and it would’ve just been a retread of the story we already know and saw through all the BotW memories. 

A lot could have been done with an actual prequel to Breath of the Wild. Pre-calamity was not completely peaceful; there was the Yiga Clan, waves of monster hordes were on the rise, and that's just the stuff that we know from the fragments we learn in Breath of the Wild; they could've added lots of stuff that filled in some of the blanks. Once the calamity strikes, there would've been lots to work with: the fall of Akkala Citadel, the fall of each champion, Link getting mortally wounded while protecting Zelda, Link's body being escorted to the shrine of resurrection, and of course Zelda marching on Hyrule Castle and facing Calamity Ganon by herself, and again, they could have added more.

As for "it would've just been a retread"; we only got memory fragments and journal entries in Breath of the Wild; an actual prequel would've been an opportunity to expand on things; to give a complete picture where there was only fragments. Besides, even if it did just retread stuff, what would've been wrong with that? An actual prequel would've meant experiencing those events rather than just seeing them and reading about them. The appeal of an actual prequel was probably summed up best, ironically enough, by Eiji Aonuma himself during Nintendo's false-advertising campaign for Age of Calamity:

"This game takes place 100 years before the events of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. In that game, the Great Calamity that occurred 100 years prior was mentioned, but the actual event itself wasn't shown in full. In this game, you'll be able to experience the events of the Great Calamity." - Eiji Aonuma, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity - A story 100 years before The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Anyway, I find it funny how, back before the game's release; when everyone thought the game was going to be an actual prequel, absolutely no one was saying, "What could actually be done with that?" The 'an actual prequel wouldn't have been able to do much' claim only started being made after the game released. Can you honestly say that, before the game released; back when everyone thought the game was going to be a prequel, you were thinking anything along the lines of, "What could be done with this?"

 

12 hours ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

One concern I have is that I've noticed Combat Arts have a durability cost. That could be bad. Weapon degradation as it is understood in FE or BotW has no place in a hack and slash game like this, and could singlehandedly ruin the game.

 

Right now, I'm working under the assumption that either:

A) Weapon durability decreases per battle, not per hit, and is accelerated by using combat arts. (Less likely)

Or

B) Weapon durability is those glowing weapon icons by the character portrait - a limited per-battle resource with each weapon icon representing 10 durability (more likely).

There's weapon durability in this game? Interesting. I remember somewhat-jokingly suggesting it as a mechanic. Between this and jokingly suggesting that the purple-haired character would be the main character, I'm getting good at accurate joke-predictions. For my next trick, I will now completely jokingly suggest that this game will have a sequence where you fly around the map as the Immaculate One and unleash breath attacks on the enemies below in an almost blatant recycling of the gameplay of the Divine Beast missions in Age of Calamity, and that a conversation between characters will have one of them cluck like a chicken. Let's now see what happens.

In all seriousness, you're right that it doesn't make much sense in a Warriors game, so it is probably just to limit the number of uses of combat arts.

Edited April 14, 2022 by vanguard333

[Florete]

Had a shower thought so I begrudgingly watched the trailer again. It didn't change anything, though.

Everyone is saying this will be an alternate timeline, but what if Three Hopes is actually a sequel? Your first question to that idea is probably "But which path would it be a sequel to?" Easy, it's a sequel to the path that correlates with whichever path you choose in Three Hopes. If you choose Scarlet Blaze, it's a sequel to Crimson Flower, etc.

So how does it end up as a "sequel" when we clearly see younger designs? Time travel, of course. My idea is that Larva will create some time shenanigans that result in Shez saving the house leaders from the bandits instead of Byleth, thus leading to them replacing Byleth as professor a student at Garreg Mach. Byleth is going to be put in the villain role from Shez's and the students' perspectives, but it will ultimately be revealed to have been a sinister moustache-twirling plan from Larva, who will be the villain in the end and will have inadvertently created a better future for everyone else. Only Byleth, Sothis, and Larva will remember the original history.

There are two problems I can think of:

EDIT: Technically these are not problems with my prediction, as Three Hopes needs to address these regardless based on what we see from the trailers. I will leave them in this post, though.

Three Houses has a clear epilogue and character endings that detail pretty far into the future, which would all basically be retconned. But hey, Age of Calamity did something similar, so I wouldn't put it past them. Paired endings, at least, can probably be brought over, since they might not want people to feel like their ships have been sunk.

Jeralt's role. Based on the first trailer he clearly has a role, and it would be weird for him, as a past Knight of Seiros, to stand by as his child becomes the enemy of Garreg Mach. It would also be weird for the Knights of Seiros, who hold Jeralt in high regard, to fight him and his child without question. Maybe he dies very early and that shot from the first trailer is Sothis or someone literally reviving him to help Byleth.

Edited April 29, 2022 by Florete

[Original Alear]

In the SF analysis of the video, there was this regarding Arval:

Occasionally acts as if something’s missing.

I could swear there is a conversation between Claude and Byleth in Three Houses - not sure whether in White Clouds or Verdant Wind - where Claude says something like "have you noticed there's someone who isn't all there?" At the time, I thought it might be Gatekeeper (don't hate me), Byleth, or Rhea, but now I wonder if it was an early veiled reference to Shez and Arval (though that puts them on the same side as Byleth in Three Houses).

[Fabulously Olivier]

40 minutes ago, Florete said:

Had a shower thought so I begrudgingly watched the trailer again. It didn't change anything, though.

Everyone is saying this will be an alternate timeline, but what if Three Hopes is actually a sequel? Your first question to that idea is probably "But which path would it be a sequel to?" Easy, it's a sequel to the path that correlates with whichever path you choose in Three Hopes. If you choose Scarlet Blaze, it's a sequel to Crimson Flower, etc.

So how does it end up as a "sequel" when we clearly see younger designs? Time travel, of course. My idea is that Larva will create some time shenanigans that result in Shez saving the house leaders from the bandits instead of Byleth, thus leading to them replacing Byleth as professor at Garreg Mach. Byleth is going to be put in the villain role from Shez's and the students' perspectives, but it will ultimately be revealed to have been a sinister moustache-twirling plan from Larva, who will be the villain in the end and will have inadvertently created a better future for everyone else. Only Byleth, Sothis, and Larva will remember the original history.

There are two problems I can think of:

Three Houses has a clear epilogue and character endings that detail pretty far into the future, which would all basically be retconned. But hey, Age of Calamity did something similar, so I wouldn't put it past them. Paired endings, at least, can probably be brought over, since they might not want people to feel like their ships have been sunk.

Jeralt's role. Based on the first trailer he clearly has a role, and it would be weird for him, as a past Knight of Seiros, to stand by as his child becomes the enemy of Garreg Mach. It would also be weird for the Knights of Seiros, who hold Jeralt in high regard, to fight him and his child without question. Maybe he dies very early and that shot from the first trailer is Sothis or someone literally reviving him to help Byleth.

Calling this a sequel might be a misnomer. Since Shez actually meets the students 1 year prior to the events of 3H and enrolls as a student, and Monica is still notably alive. Meaning that this game is a prequel leading into an alternate route, not a sequel to any one route. And as an alternate route or collection thereof, it would be no more nor less canon than any given route. It's also likely, I think, that we could be dealing with an inverse of 3H's story, where all 3 routes collaspe into a similar ending (whereas 3H had a largely common beginning funneling out into 4 endings). 

 

It's frankly too early to tell, and I think the whole 'antagonist Byleth' thing is a red herring.

[Lightchao42]

Prediction: Shez is an Agarthan sleeper agent, but they don't know it. They ended up in Shambhala at some point, had Arval sealed into them, then was released into Fódlan in the hopes of eventually running into Byleth. Meeting Byleth triggers Arval's awakening, and the Agarthans probably intend for Arval to take full control and destroy Sothis or something to that effect. The first trailer shows that Byleth and Shez fuse with their respective gods at some point, even if I don't imagine Byleth will actually be a villain. This theory also doesn't explain who exactly Arval is, but they seem to be amnesic. Maybe they'll decide they don't want to destroy Sothis; Shez probably won't, at any rate.

Another question: is Byleth still a teacher in this universe? If so, they'll probably be the professor of whatever house Shez joins. It seems the war starts fairly early into the game, so maybe Shez will join the academy fairly late into the year. Circumstances may force Byleth to leave the academy before the war starts, so Shez becomes each lord's sidekick instead.

[Fabulously Olivier]

So, here's my shower thoughts.

 

This is a time travel prequel/midquel, but it's one that does not undo any route but rather reinforces both the tragedy and the triumph of all routes.

 

When Kronya kills Jeralt, Byleth uses divine pulse. Not just once. Multiple times to try to thwart things imminently, before trying for a more proactive solution - saving Monica.

 

Ultimately, because of circumstances beyond Byleth's control (the awakening of a rival god within one of their fallen foes in the past), events end up unfolding differently, leading to multiple different timelines all of which still lead to war and the eventual death of Jeralt (but further in, with him being playable so Koei can have their cake and eat it too). Which is why we see the Jeralt scene at different times. This also explains why in the 3H timelines, Byleth allows Jeralt to die. They've tried, they've seen the different outcomes, and it's futile.

Edited April 14, 2022 by Fabulously Olivier

[Florete]

3 hours ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

Calling this a sequel might be a misnomer. Since Shez actually meets the students 1 year prior to the events of 3H and enrolls as a student, and Monica is still notably alive. Meaning that this game is a prequel leading into an alternate route, not a sequel to any one route. And as an alternate route or collection thereof, it would be no more nor less canon than any given route. It's also likely, I think, that we could be dealing with an inverse of 3H's story, where all 3 routes collaspe into a similar ending (whereas 3H had a largely common beginning funneling out into 4 endings). 

 

It's frankly too early to tell, and I think the whole 'antagonist Byleth' thing is a red herring.

I mean, none of that actually conflicts with what I proposed. It's similar to how Age of Calamity is technically a sequel despite happening in the past because its events come about as a result of what happens later in BotW.

Quote

Since Shez actually meets the students 1 year prior to the events of 3H and enrolls as a student

When was this stated?

[Lintu]

42 minutes ago, Florete said:

I mean, none of that actually conflicts with what I proposed. It's similar to how Age of Calamity is technically a sequel despite happening in the past because its events come about as a result of what happens later in BotW.

When was this stated?

I thought it was mentioned in the Analysis on the site that it was Byleth Shez met a year before three houses starts then they go off training, then at some point they meet the students but it doesn't specifically state when Shez meets the students. For all we know he could be just before Byleth meets them in three houses

Edited April 14, 2022 by Lintu

[Florete]

4 minutes ago, Lintu said:

I thought it was mentioned in the Analysis on the site that it was Byleth Shez met a year before three houses starts then they go off training, then at some point they meet the students but it doesn't specifically state when Shez meets the students.

Yeah, that's the info I'm familiar with. The way it's been described that Shez meets the students suggests it could be the same event as the prologue encounter from Three Houses, and I see nothing about Shez enrolling as a student.