If TMS got a sequel, which Mirages would you pick.

[Fabulously Olivier]

Your choices need to fulfill the following criteria:

 

* 8 party members, distributed between two focus games.

* Balanced party. As in, representing a variety of movement types, weapon types, roles, and elemental affinities.

* Full weapon triangle coverage. Minimum main weapon triangle. Consider a secondary triangle too.

* Only one lord, to be the protagonist's mirage. (No, the royal siblings do not count.

 

 

So, here's my choices:

Spoiler

I'll be sourcing Path of Radiance and Three Houses.

 

I'm also doing a triple triangle. Sword/Axe/Lance, Gauntlets/Magic/Bows, and Anima/Light/Dark.

 

Sword - Ike

Ranger -> Hero or Vanguard

Ike would be an infantry type and would learn Sword, Axe, Brawling, and Fire skills. His weaknesses would be Lances and Wind. He is particularly vulnerable to Seal, but resists Charm.

Hero would focus on Axe skills, while Vanguard would focus on Brawling.

 

Axe - Titania

Paladin -> Silver Knight or Gold Knight

Your 2nd party member. Titania would be a versatile cavalry unit that covers the full primary weapon triangle. She would learn Axe, Lance, Sword, Bow, and Fire skills. Her weaknesses would be Swords and Ice. She is particularly vulnerable to Charm, but resists Fear.

Silver Knight would teach Lance and Bow while Gold Knight would teach sword and fire. 

 

Lance - Sylvain

Cavalier -> Paladin or Dark Knight

Sylvain would be a cavalry type who would learn Lance, Fire, Lightning, and Dark skills. His weaknesses would be Axes and Light. He would be particularly vulnerable to Charm, but resist Seal.

Paladin would improve physical skills while Dark Knight would improve magic.

 

Axe - Jill

Wyvern Rider - Wyvern Lord or Malig Knight

Jill would be a flying type who would learn Axe, Wind, Fire, and Lightning skills. Her weaknesses are Bows and Lightning. She would be particularly vulnerable to Seal, but resists Sleep.

Wyvern Lord would grant powerful physical skills, while Malig Knight would improve her magic options.

 

Bow - Bernadetta

Archer -> Sniper or Trickster

Bernadetta would be an infantry type and would learn Bow, Ice, Wind, and Dark skills. Her weaknesses are Light and Fire. She's vulnerable to Fear, but resists Sleep.

Sniper would improve damage, while Trickster would improve healing and debuffing.

 

Sword - Lysithea

Mage -> Mortal Savant or Gremory

Lysithea would be an infantry type and would learn Sword, Dark, Light, and Lightning skills. She would be your 3rd party member, and much needed as a healer.

Lysithea would be weak to Lances and Gauntlets. She would be vulnerable to Fear, but resists Seal.

Mortal Savant would improve Lysithea's sword and lightning skills and provide a wide range of useful passives. Gremory would grant her a range of powerful spells.

 

Gauntlets - Balthus

Brawler -> Grappler or War Monk

Balthus would be an infantry type and would learn Brawling, Fire, Lightning, and Light skills. His weaknesses would be Bows and Ice. He is vulnerable to Charm but resists Fear.

Grappler would focus purely on hard hitting physical attacks, while War Monk would improve healing and support.

 

Nasir or Ena

Your endgame party member would depend on your choice at the Black Knight boss fight. Both are Armor and Dragon prepromotes with inflated stats. Effectively, choosing your character is choosing their class promotion.

Nasir would be a White Dragon, learning Brawling, Ice, Light, and Lightning skills. He is also extremely good at healing and buffing. He is weak to Fire and Lightning. He resists Charm but is vulnerable to Fear.

Ena would be a Red Dragon learning Brawling, Fire, Dark, and Wind skills. She is also great at debuffing. She is weak to Ice and Lightning. She resists Fear but is vulnerable to Charm.

 

Edited September 19, 2022 by Fabulously Olivier

[Dark Holy Elf]

Cool idea!

Rather than just go with personal favourites, I'm trying to go with what I might do if I were in charge of the game. The guiding principles I used for this were to stick within the stipulations of this thread, to use popularity as a major guidepost, and to go for balance (both in gameplay and in representation) where possible.

First off, the games I would go with are Fates and Three Houses. They're by far the two most popular games that weren't represented in the first TMS. Personally, I'd like to add more games and might throw in Tellius and Elibe (replace one with Judgral if we're trying to hype up a remake), but I'm sticking with the rules as written.

I'm using the same elements as the first TMS but getting rid of Mind/Body (which aren't very Fire Emblem, IMO) in favour of Light/Dark. Some of the statuses covered by Mind/Body could be moved to existing elements. So, that means:
Sword, Lance, Axe, Bow, Wind, Fire, Lightning, Ice, Light, Dark

Like in TMS I'm assuming that sword/lance/axe are more common than other elements, so generally everyone gets to be weak to exactly one of them.

Like TMS there's no "official" triangle but you can see two very obvious ones showing up consistently anyway: sword/lance/axe and wind/fire/lightning. The other three elements I treated as mostly neutral. I expect light and dark would get a lot of utility/status moves, as is true in both Three Houses and at least some SMT games.

Spoiler

 

Byleth: Sword, Fire, Light
Weak: Lance, Lightning
Resist: Axe, Wind

The lord mirage. Their gender is choosable by the player, as is the gender of the main character themself, as is the norm for recent FE games. I went with Byleth over Corrin (mostly due to the fact that Byleth has won CYL, and also has well-defined magic elements to specialize in) but you could argue me either way. Ironically, Byleth might have the most healing abilities of any mirage, given my other choices for mages, as you'll see.

Camilla: Axe, Fire, Lightning
Weak: Bow, Wind
Resist: Lance, Ice

With Edelgard out via the "one lord" clause she's the obvious choice for an axe-user, and also gives us the Wyvern Rider that the first TMS didn't. I opted not to give this mirage a sword weakness, as the wyvern line learns Swordbreaker in Fates.

Azura: Lance, Ice, Light
Weak: Axe, Dark
Resist: Sword, Light

Obviously, Azura's list of skills would include one which can transfer a turn to an ally, allowing a major FE class to actually be properly represented. Anyway, Azura is both popular and plot-important on top of this, so she was a no-brainer pick.

Lysithea: Dark, Light, Fire
Weak: Sword, Lance, Axe, Ice
Resist: Bow, Dark

The powerhouse mage is our Golden Deer representative. The user of the Lysithea mirage will have the highest damage potential of any character in the game. And with three common weaknesses, you'd have to work to keep them safe. Thank goodness Bowbreaker lets me justify some sort of physical resistance on her.

Bernadetta: Bow, Lance, Ice, Lightning
Weak: Axe, Wind
Resist: Sword, Fire

Bernie's status as a bow knight is represented by her having some sort of batmobile-type mirage steed. Which she can hide inside if necessary, of course. She ended up with one more weapon type than normal, but if you look at her learned spells and boons this is hard to argue with.

Felix: Sword, Bow, Lightning
Weak: Lance, Wind
Resist: Axe, Fire

Like Navarre, we get a second sword user. Felix has a boon in bows and lightning spells, so his build followed in a straightforward manner. I have little to say about him, but he's popular, and the niches of non-lord sword-user and Blue Lion both needed to be filled.

Takumi: Bow, Wind
Weak: Sword, Fire
Resist: Lance, Lightning

The more traditional archer. Like Virion in TMS1, his physical weakness and resistance is an arbitrary choice; I gave him the sword weakness which I skipped on Camilla, and the lance resistance which only one other person has. Which... actually works well because that's where yumis are on the weapon triangle in Fates, I just realized!

Leo: Dark, Sword, Ice, Wind
Weak: Fire, Light
Resist: Dark, Lightning

I gave him wind just because I wanted to have a second person to have wind, and he fit more than anyone else. I listed swords for him but I'd picture him having a bad strength stat so what few sword moves he would learn would be for utility, not damage, and as such I didn't treat him as a sword-user for weakness/resistance. I decided I kinda liked him not having any physical weaknesses, so he imagine him as the opposite of Lysithea: sturdy/reliable but much weaker on offence.

 

For gender balance, I've gone with four women, three men, and one player-chosen. A slight bias towards women but that's less extreme than the 5-2 split in the other direction of the TMS1 mirages. I went with four characters from each game, and tried to divide up the attention between the three houses (one each) and Hoshido/Nohr.

[Use the Falchion]

I have a 100+ page and growing outline (plus a few more scattered documents) on how I'd love to do a TMS sequel. 

 

Taking some of my ideas from my TMS 3 ideas (yes, I have ideas for TMS 2-4, although 3 may be split, so it may be 2-5 - the final one is more nebulous) and applying them to your rules, Genealogy and Three Houses work best, I think.

Lord - Sigurd (Female protag)

Healing/Light Mage to Saint - Deirdre (Female Protag's brother)

Knight to Marshall - Lex (First ally?)

Mage to Baron - Edelgard (because I can) (Female Lancer) - Offensive Magic/Armor/Axe

Archer to Barbarossa - Claude (Male Aloof Ally) - Passive Magic/Flying/Bow/Sword

Soldier to Blessed Knight - Dimitri (and/or Quan) (Male Best Friend) Healing Magic/Cavalry/Lance

Myrmidon to Trueblade - Ayra (Rival-Turned-Ally) 

Pegasus Knight to Seraph Knight - Erinys (Free spirit who joins)

 

Bonus Ally - Byleth

 

 

 

 

[Jotari]

TMS had seven playable characters each with their own mirage. Said mirage could then branch promote into one of two promotions. Rather than having branching promotions like that (which were almost identical), I think it'd be more interesting if each character got more than one mirage each. Say a party of five or six but with two mirages each making a party essentially of ten or twelve. Only how often you use each of the characters two mirages will influence how their stats grow and what skills they gain access to. A  number of ten or above would better represent the distribution of Fire Emblem classes too. TMS had two sword infantry (lord and myrmidon), one lance cavalry, once lance flier, one mage infantry, one bow infantry and one axe armour. There isn't a fighter or and armoured lance unit or a dancer or even a sword cavalry. I think I would have something like this

Character 1: Sword Lord + Plot Line Better Lord

Character 2: Axe armour + Lance Armour

Character 3: Lance Infantry + Sword Cavalry

Character 4: Bow Infantry + Axe Flier (Draco Knight)

Character 5: Mage Infantry + Sword Flier (pegasus)

Character 6: Lance Cavalry + Bow Cavalry

Character 7: Dancer + Manakete

That doesn't even cover the full scope of Fire Embelm, but I think it's better than 7 or 8. Of course rather than each character getting to specific mirages, the second mirage could be gained without being attached to a character and the player is free to attach them to any character they want (so you gain, say, Sin as a mirage and can equip him to any of the characters in the party). Having each Mirage equip more than one weapon type is also something I'd be interested in. That would also make promotion more important, much like regular Fire Emblem.

As for the actual question of this thread about specific Fire Emblem characters, my bias for settings tends towards Elibe, Tellius and Jugdral. So fill in the above classes with the most obvious choice. Of course if I had completely control I think I'd make TMS into a straight up SMT game where you recruit and fuse over a hundred different Fire Emblem characters.

Edited September 19, 2022 by Jotari

[joevar]

anything thats not coming from Marth game, Chrom game, or Corrin game. i will be content if they do that regardless of what they actually pick for mirage.

personally i want more than one mirage for each character, but i  guess thats going to be hard to design completely new fancy outfit for each combination. but could be done maybe by having each character has class archetype? so their outfit wont change too much between mirage since its still has similar theme for one character.

total playable character more than 6, and maybe, just maybe, a secret / final character thats actually independent Mirage that doesnt need a human partner. preferably a character from FE that has strong independence personality. that would be an intersting twist

 

[lenticular]

It depends. Are we talking about what I'd actually do if I was in charge of making the game and trying to have it be successful, or are we talking about what I would personally like to see in a game that was intended purely to make me happy? In the former case, I'd come up with something a lot like the list that @Dark Holy Elf came up with. Except I'd probably replace the Fates characters with Engage characters.

If it was made just for me, then I actually have two possible answers. One is that my Mirages would be Itsuki, Tsubasa, Touma, Kiria, Eleonora, Mamori, Yashiro, and Maiko. They would be summoned into an existing Fire Emblem world after the end of that world's big storyline war, with the Mirage Masters being characters from that world. The idea is that the mainline FE characters know how to fight, but through the course of their war they have lost culture, have forgotten how to make beauty and have fun. So the game would be about bringing light back into the world after the dark times of the mainline game.

The other alternative would be a direct sequel to the first game, featuring mostly the same main characters. Except it would be set ten years later, and they'll all be washed up has-beens, who have been chewed up and spat by show business. The one exception to this would be Itsuki, who would be in a management role, similar to Maiko's role in the first game. The one new character would actually serve as the game's main character and would be an idol under his management, who was a big fan of all the crew from the original game. She and Itsuki would then have to work to bring the old crew back together, finding a place for them in show business that wasn't reliant on youth and being the new hotness. In a meta-commentary sort of way, the FE characters they'd get as mirages would be characters from the older, more forgotten games. Thracia 776 characters would be perfect, but I've never played that, so instead I'll say that they get mirages from Radiant Dawn and Sacred Stones. Let's say Eirika, L'Arachel, Seth, Myrrh, Rafiel, Skrimir, Nolan, and Heather.

Would these ever happen? No. Would they be successful if they ever did? No. Are they far too high concept? Definitely. Did I actually meet the requirements in the original post? Only just barely. But this was the version of the hypothetical sequel that is made for my own personal edification.

[Fabulously Olivier]

5 hours ago, Jotari said:

TMS had seven playable characters each with their own mirage. Said mirage could then branch promote into one of two promotions. Rather than having branching promotions like that (which were almost identical)

I think this is largely because the original game chose not to let you play as the badass mirages, but rather as the mirage masters, and didn't even bother giving them promoted battle outfits. That could and should be remediated by having them transform fully into their mirage counterparts in idolaspheres.

[Jotari]

25 minutes ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

I think this is largely because the original game chose not to let you play as the badass mirages, but rather as the mirage masters, and didn't even bother giving them promoted battle outfits. That could and should be remediated by having them transform fully into their mirage counterparts in idolaspheres.

While I certainly wouldn't object to being able to play using the mirage designs, I don't thinking able to do so would make the gameplay more distinct, which is what I was referring to with the branched promotions.

[Fabulously Olivier]

Just now, Jotari said:

While I certainly wouldn't object to being able to play using the mirage designs, I don't thinking able to do so would make the gameplay more distinct, which is what I was referring to with the branched promotions.

Sure. But a cosmetic shift makes a big difference when it comes to showing progression and making something feel different. It signals that an upgrade has happened.

 

1 hour ago, lenticular said:

It depends. Are we talking about what I'd actually do if I was in charge of making the game and trying to have it be successful, or are we talking about what I would personally like to see in a game that was intended purely to make me happy? In the former case, I'd come up with something a lot like the list that @Dark Holy Elf came up with. Except I'd probably replace the Fates characters with Engage characters.

If it was made just for me, then I actually have two possible answers. One is that my Mirages would be Itsuki, Tsubasa, Touma, Kiria, Eleonora, Mamori, Yashiro, and Maiko. They would be summoned into an existing Fire Emblem world after the end of that world's big storyline war, with the Mirage Masters being characters from that world. The idea is that the mainline FE characters know how to fight, but through the course of their war they have lost culture, have forgotten how to make beauty and have fun. So the game would be about bringing light back into the world after the dark times of the mainline game.

The other alternative would be a direct sequel to the first game, featuring mostly the same main characters. Except it would be set ten years later, and they'll all be washed up has-beens, who have been chewed up and spat by show business. The one exception to this would be Itsuki, who would be in a management role, similar to Maiko's role in the first game. The one new character would actually serve as the game's main character and would be an idol under his management, who was a big fan of all the crew from the original game. She and Itsuki would then have to work to bring the old crew back together, finding a place for them in show business that wasn't reliant on youth and being the new hotness. In a meta-commentary sort of way, the FE characters they'd get as mirages would be characters from the older, more forgotten games. Thracia 776 characters would be perfect, but I've never played that, so instead I'll say that they get mirages from Radiant Dawn and Sacred Stones. Let's say Eirika, L'Arachel, Seth, Myrrh, Rafiel, Skrimir, Nolan, and Heather.

Would these ever happen? No. Would they be successful if they ever did? No. Are they far too high concept? Definitely. Did I actually meet the requirements in the original post? Only just barely. But this was the version of the hypothetical sequel that is made for my own personal edification.

I like this, but I'd have best bro Touma be the other successful exception. He could be the ingame equivalent of Tommy Oliver/Jason David Frank.

[Use the Falchion]

I had an idea the other day where the MC wasn't the lord, but the "vassal" to the Lord (more akin to how Itsuki acts as one who supports Tsubasa than he does as a lord does). 

The two games were Three Houses and Binding Blade, but each character would have two spirits (which is more akin to my original and core TMS 2 ideas than my TMS 3 one above). 

 

MC** - Ranger - Roy & Felix (Hero/Vanguard vs Mortal Savant/Dread Fighter) (Yes I know Rutger goes better, but I think Roy and Felix would make for a more interesting pair.) 

Gal** - Lord (later Holy Lord and then Saint) - Lilina & Flayn* 

Cool Archer Girl** - Archer (Sniper/Deadeye vs Bow Knight/Silver Knight) - Igrene & Shamir (Sue is also an option, if we're going to make a fun homage to FE 6 and have all of Roy's romantic options be available. But I feel that changes the game's focus in a way that resembles some of the less interesting aspects of TMS.)

??? - Knight (General/Baron vs Wyvern Rider/Wyvern Lord) - Seteth & Bartre

??? - Myrmidon (Swordmaster/Trueblade vs Falcon Knight/Seraph Knight***) - Ingrid & Thea/Shanna

??? - Cavalier - Lance & Lorenz (Paladin/Mage Knight vs Great Knight/Gold Knight)

??? - Dancer (promotes to Diva) - Larum & Dorothea 

??? - Mage (Sage/Gremory vs Shaman/Druid) - Sophia & Lysithea (I was tempted to do Niime and Lysithea, but I think they'd make an oddly great match. Cecilia and Lysithea is also an option for the above reasons.) 

 

 

*I wanted Rhea to be here, but Flayn fits better I suppose.

**In my head, I'm toying with the idea of each character being the opposite of the Mirages and growing to be more like them (in their own way of course) by the end of the game. For example, the Gal character is rough around the edges and doesn't really care about her fans or the people under her, but grows to be passionate about her songs and the healing they can provide as the game goes on. The cool archer girl is actually pretty dorky, but by embracing her dorkiness she becomes more confident in herself and thus becomes cool. 

***YEAH, I WENT THERE. LET'S PROMOTE A MYRMIDON INTO A SWORD-MAIN PEGASUS KNIGHT. 

[Acacia Sgt]

I would certainly try to do it differently if I was in charge of a TMS sequel, but just following the guidelines stablished by the OP...

---

Two games: Shadows of Valentia and Sacred Stones

Eight characters:

* Ephraim

For a non-sword user. Sure, Alm has bows and Celica magic, but swords are still their main weapons.

* Clive

* Sonya

* Genny

Cleric wasn't a playable Mirage class in the first TMS, but I figured might as well spice things up so the roster isn't just a 1:1 copy.

* Leon

* Garcia

Ditto. Axe infantry was armor in TMS... now it's not here.

* Tethys

Using swords, as most dancers do nowadays.

* Myrrh

Technically she fills the flier role... but well, instead of lances or axes... why not dragonstones, heh. Would have to be very creative coming up with Carnages though, perhaps.

---

Yeah, I'll admit I did this with a little bit of randomness.. and aiming for an even split between both settings and male-female cast. Perhaps later on I might do a more fleshed out version...