Rakath

There is also the Freudian (Ugh) element of replacing your father as the final step to adulthood. Which generally means killing him so the space is opened.

I'd require some very specific huge nonsensical hurdles to achieve this, if they did it. Having an 'I get everything' ending needs some earning it, either through gameplay (low turn count battles or some such), or through story (maneuvering each house leader to fall in love/s support with someone from your house). So that to get it, it requires some managing of your choices to get there. If it's something low impact to make happen it just feels cheap. ...Unless it's innately a bad end where you go darkside and take over all three kingdoms as the descendant of a fell dragon, that's cool.

If I was reading the requirements right, the mounted tests are an 'and' requirement. Which means you can attempt the test without both but your chances won't be at 100. And how much not at 100 you'd be with needing a C in flying is probably significant.

I imagine some maps will want Infantry Axes because Water/mountain/forest terrain is unfriendly to mounted. And that C in Flying is a lot more work than a D in mounted, so you can't just rise above the grounds.

Doing 6+7 as a single game isn't impossible, it allows them to do things that people liked (child units) without things they didn't like (baby dimensions). And if Three Houses is as stupidly huge as being reported, a combined FE6+7 campaign would compare more favorably than doing either game alone. Now, if IS wants to go for the cash, they could do FE7 then FE6 with a data transfer system to allow for certain bonuses/changes in FE6 based on your FE7 units. But without a real significant overhaul that might lead to a 'feelbad' moment if either game feels significantly smaller than 3H.

I could see them padding out the cast of FE6+7 by adding more characters in both directions. Retconning more parents into 7, and more kids into 6. Overhauling the gameplay systems of the GBA titles with more current tech (skills, class system rework) isn't out of the question as the main overhaul.

Trying to gauge time periods when magic, by its very nature, changes the evolution of technology because magic means you don't need to invest time/energy into inventing firearms. You can use a book to make a meteor that can kill a dragon. You don't need to invent certain transport systems at the same speed when you have dragons and horsefeathers and the like. Previous games did feel to be at an earlier time period based on the armor/gear worn by characters, this one feels a bit later... but still feels fine because you don't need a rifle that takes two minutes to reload when you can just fireball the other guys.

Provided the effective weapons have reasonable structure to them, not having to chew through your weapon uses is a valid reason to carry the effective weapons. But if they have only 15-20 uses it just wouldn't be worth it, in my opinion.

It's a balance of gameplay vs. story? On a story level, yes, having less characters means you're not spreading writing so thin (Radiant Dawn's roster is part of why it didn't have proper supports), they get more focus and more traits to explore and look into. Having a smaller roster overall is better for writing. On a gameplay level you can't make it 'acceptable' to let a character or 4 die with a smaller roster size. This could be a shift toward Casual/Phoenix being the 'main' mode for gameplay (away from Classic 'death is permanent'). You need enough roster size to fill in gaps. In this view a smaller roster size is a big disadvantage. Without the other houses, a conservative estimate of your possible units late game is disastrously low (24, by current known data). Just- in case you let anyone die that's a lot of detriment to your party.

Which... is why I was arguing against mid-20s (24-26) not early 20s (20-22), I'd side-eye a 22/23 year old Byleth a bit, although I suppose it's fine. The older you make Byleth the further away you get from 'coming of age hero journey protagonist' which is kinda Fire Emblem's 'thing' except for Sigurd who isn't the coming of age hero journey protagonist of that game. It doesn't serve the narrative to make Byleth 27, is mostly where I am (and it messes up how old Jeralt is, and how okay any romances would be.)

So I did a quick running of the numbers on cast size for FE3H vs. Everything else. The only way you can really make this 'work' is if you can get all almost all the other house rosters into your party by the end? All revealed characters (who are not slithering) nets us a total of 40 recruitable (including Byleth and the house leaders). FE4 and FE8 go lower than that depending on the math. FE4 has 24 gen 1 and 39 gen 2, FE8 has 34 not counting the postgame recruitment of dead characters. And that still feels low to me? If there are two per house you can't recruit we're down to 36? And Rhea or Jeralt is definitely going to die. So that makes it even lower... I think there have to be a few late game units, there just... have to be. Alongside some cool way to recruit units from other houses in War phase. (I'm guessing supports across houses so if you build a support between Mercedes and Petra, one could talk to the other in the war phase. As an example.)

I mean, yes, but if that's the case what narrative reason would you make Jeralt have Byleth at a young age for Byleth to then be severely older than the student body? It holds a greater narrative purpose to have Byleth be the age Jeralt met his wife at the start of game, possibly a bit younger than Jeralt so Byleth ages into that place during the skip. Unless we're doing a Gilmore Girls blurring the line between parent and best friend, making Jeralt a young parent to make Byleth older feels rather unreasonable. Especially when making Byleth younger serves more overall purposes. Of course, this is the one game where I could see Localization changing Byleth's age to make them younger than the Japanese counterpart. But I'm staying with Byleth being half Jeralt's age (more or less) and a few (two to three) years older than the house leaders.

Looking at both Byleth, and Jeralt, I'm leaning toward 18-21 as the age range for Byleth. Once you start having Byleth in their mid-20s you're asking for Jeralt to be somewhere in his 50s which just doesn't feel right to me. But this is anime aging, that barefoot dragon girl in Byleth's head is clearly several centuries old at the youngest so... yeah.

My assumption is that we've met all the recruitable characters (+ slithery villains, shared between the routes), at least recruitable in the school phase, until IS does a thing to dissuade me of this idea. I imagine we have an Gatoh or someone late game that's a surprise of some kind, and possibly recruitments unique to war phase in each house that aren't known yet. But that this is the starting pack of info (with other announces after release).

I'd say that S-rank is still only a 70-80% thing, there's a chance Master Tier classes just require combinations of Professor levels so that you don't need S-Rank (such as Dread Fighter requiring A in multiple weapons). I mean the odds are good for S-Rank being a thing, especially holding some of the more dumb skills from FE skill history. Double S or S+ at a 50-50 being there or not. As we don't know what Class Mastering does, there are enough variables I wouldn't bet on this just yet. Maybe after another Famitsu...

Another plausible, but without any evidence, possibility. So many things it could be until we have evidence of what it is. It could also be possible that different characters get 'use Magic/use Magic - Movetype' at different levels. So that a proper mage like Lysithea or Linhardt (or someone with a strength in one of move skills, like Ingrid or Ferdinand) gains access to magic cavalry/flying/armor faster than, say Dedue or Caspar.

There are a lot of variables on the table still, just because we're doing so many 'new' things and honestly... I'm excited. Like, mastering a class means something. We don't know what that does specifically. We know that Weapon Ranks unlock things but not the path and specifics of them. How much variation is unit specific. Right now non-magic classes can't use magic, but they very well could have one of the abilities tied to Faith/Reason be 'use Magic.' So many unanswered questions... and even if a lot of my theorizing could be completely unmade I can't wait to know.

I wonder if Grappler and Assassin have different Terrain values, like thief and pirate in past games.

They mitigated a few of these. Wyvern Rider needs less Flying than the other advanced classes (Paladin requires a B in riding, Fortress a B in armor, Wyvern requires C). I imagine that 4th Tiers will require A in riding/armor, while only a B for Flying for the same reason. Also the nature of the classing system means you can switch off of a class line mid-way to work on some other need. However this requires some hands on to see how easy it is to just- say, spend some time being a Bishop (for either a Faith!Falco Knight) or Mage (Dark Flyier). Until we see the 4th tiers we can't know the exact expectations.

So looking at the growth diagrams for the Advanced classes make me think all of them are 'final' forms for their particular lines. The only ones where that might not be the case are Hero and Grappler. As whatever stat defines that class (classically in other games) is capped out in their respective diagrams. The Paladin's max movement, Swordmaster's max speed, and so on. The rule I'm kinda following here is "You can't go past the maximum on a definitive stat." Meaning I'm leaning more toward the idea that Tier 4 is only specialized units, in the line of special Lord promotes for each of the house leaders. Classes that are outliers on the system as a whole (Singer and Manakete). Or units that would require some hoops in-game to reach (Mounted mages, Ballistician) simply for game balance. Because Canto + Magic is dumb and we should remember that. Another unit I'd put up there is Trickster/Adventurer if their class skills include Acrobat. Because ignoring terrain costs is dumb. Another thing is I figure certain DLC classes in the past might be DLC classes added here too. Dread Fighter (Although Dread Fighter could just be- where Hero and Grappler are aiming).

In my defense historically Pirate(Barbarian)/Berserker is one of the three most protected classes (with Peg Knight/Falco Knight and Troubador/Valkyrie). I agree that Fighter/Warrior isn't being protected in this game (like it was in Awakening, as the other gender locked class), but between Hero and Gauntlet Specialties being Male-locked, Berserker is probably also male locked. I'd love it if it wasn't, because reclassing Edelgard into Beserker all day every day would be my dream. As for movement types, if there's no interface for Mounted Armor then it might just be a class that requires levels in armor to get it, and then just has some stupidly high base/growth in Def. And, yes, I've been concerned about total class count being somewhere in the 35-40 range as well, since that. However "Over 30 classes" coincides with "We know exactly 30 classes" so there's a small margin for higher in the base game (but I'm not holding my breath, a lot of my Tier 4 classes that are just better versions of Tier 3 classes could be cut for that reason. Like Saint/Sorcerer.)

I'm still, more or less, on the same page that the fourth level classes will be some combination of these, although less sure on some based on a revised thought process due to looking at exactly how classes work. (Thus the following is an edited version of a previous post.)

Some skills might be level locked? Especially for classes you can access early. The added skill on Ingrid is Lancefaire (the icon is near-identical to Lancefaire in Fateswakening). Which would make sense on Paladin and Peg Knight. In the same way Swordfaire would make sense on Hero and Swordmaster. "Mastering" a class would be a whole new thing to keep track of alongside everything else in the variables on your character.

Given that Brigand is Axe/Fighting but only requires a proficiency in axes, it's likely Warrior is the same. It's also possible Swordmasters are Sword/Fighting (as that's the most reasonable and least silly secondary weapon for a Swordmaster to use). Sniper is in much the same space (although they could double up on Bow/Sword the way Archers do).

Exactly so. If you wanna just preload the game (without the Expansion), you can.