Luninareph

Yes! I completely agree. Shinon's design makes sense.

I don't think 2-3 range "fixes" archers so much as it renders them easily exploitable. Archers' real problem is that they have a dramatically gated experience flow because they functionally have no enemy phase. This is particularly notable because they're often either prepromotes or really low level, so their stats suck even if their growths don't and they're stuck with them forever because they can't level quickly. 2-3 range gives archers a niche use of outranging everything, allowing them to plink-plink at stationery bosses, but it doesn't fix their decimated ability to enemy-phase. What archers SHOULD have is either huge amounts of evasion to help them dodge all incoming attacks, meaning they at least don't need to be protected even if they aren't going to retaliate, or extreme player-phase strength so they can punch through big targets worth a lot of experience to balance out quantity of kills on enemy phase. At least, that's my take on it.

F!Kamui unless there is marriage and I have either an overpoweringly charming waifu candidate (a la Cecilia from FE6) or no husbandos whatsoever (unlikely that Suzukaze, Cyrus, Tsubaki, Joker, and all unseen characters will ALL fail the husbando test, but you never know).

Spending the six months waiting for the NA version planning my units, their classes, their pair-ups, and everything else related to them! I think the planning might be my favorite part of any video game XD;

He is pretty hot :D

Already the Favorite: Elise Possible Husbando Tier: Suzukaze, Joker, Cyrus Other Favorites So Far: Fem!Kamui, Takumi, Kazahana Honorable Mentions: Ryouma, Sakura, Marx, Camilla, the unnamed woman who is presumably Queen of Hoshido I don't know what it is about Elise. There's nothing particularly original about her design, she looks like a dozen other characters I've seen before, but there's something so completely and sweetly disarming about her. I can't say no to that face :3

Anything, don't even care, JUST WANT MORE INFORMATION *foams at the mouth*

I just hope you don't have to kill Elise on the Hoshidan route. I don't know if I can do it :(

I liked both features in all the games they've appeared in, so I vote yes.

I liked having an avatar in Awakening. And I loved the kids system in FE4 and Awakening both. So I hope they're both back for this one :D

Well, they've said it'll have challenges "the likes of which have never be seen in the series up until now." Considering that is basically a direct gauntlet throwdown to FE5, which is renowned as the most difficult (in most circles I've seen, anyway,) they must have some pretty big ideas for what to do with the enemies and the maps. After all, numbers were generally the least important part of FE5's actual difficulty. And IntSys does love to make their players bleed. So I'm optimistic :D (Source: http://kotaku.com/new-fire-emblem-announced-for-3ds-1679423159)

Why not? I liked it as a mechanic, even if it was grossly overpowered. If they manage to tone it back and balance it better, I think it'd be pretty great.

Do you think they could have been done well while retaining the size? Or do you think the size pretty much destroyed any kind of good design they could have? They certainly are intimidating. "Poor non-horsy people" indeed XD

Thank you!! :) What would you say botched the execution? Is it as Klokinator said and that there's too many instances where you're just slogging with nothing interesting going on, or was there more to it than that?

I'm just curious. Apologies if this has been done before!

Bolding mine.

Yeeeees, Mana is one of my favorite substitutes :( Mana, Dimna, Sharlow, Asaello, and Laylea are all just too cute. Aha, good to know. Thanks for the warning. I'm probably not going to use a similar ban on my playthrough, but I WILL probably sandbag Seliph/Leif/other non-substitutes not named Julia (I love Julia too much to sandbag her) and shower the substitutes with favoritism, so I'll use caution with those two nasties.

On a somewhat related note, how difficult is FE4 if one is not using the Arena? I definitely used it my first time playing, but I find it extremely exhausting and would like to skip it--or at least minimize my use of it--as long as that doesn't catapult the difficulty through the roof or anything.

To be honest, the part that seems the most difficult is making sure everybody goes through the first half of the game without pairing off. Although I suppose the maps are so huge it's not that difficult to keep the guys and girls away from each other, huh?

Just curious. I don't know, I absolutely love a lot of the substitute characters in Genealogy of the Holy War and I was thinking about attempting such a thing in the future. So I was wondering if anybody had done it before, and if there was any advice for such a thing :)

Ugh, this is so hard! FE6: Chad, Lilina, Cecilia, Fae, Sophia, Nimue Finalists: Cecilia, Nimue Winner: Cecilia FE7: Florina, Sain, Matthew, Nils, Pent, Louise, Renault Finalists: Pent, Louise Winner: I REFUSE TO CHOOSE FE8: Artur, Natasha, L'Arachel, Cormag, Ismaire Finalists: L'Arachel, Cormag Winner: L'Arachel Grand Winner: L'Arachel

It's funny, but looking at the GBA games, the guys I think are most attractive are (generally) not actually the one I like best. I mean, I think Dieck, Noah, Karel, Canas, Dart, Ephraim, Forde, and Gerik are all extremely handsome and very attractive, but none of them are the guys from those games that I would most want to marry or sleep with. And quite possibly the guy I find most attractive is Yahn/Jahn from FE6, and I absolutely cannot stand him. (I guess I have a kismesis crush on him or something.) To be perfectly honest, I think I am going to give my "Best Looking Bloke" award to Cormag from FE8. I don't know what it is about him, but I would choose him over any other Elibe male (except for Pent--oh man, Pent--but then Louise and possibly Loki Laufeyson would shoot me).

Lyn is the only Lord I might have brought to the endgame even if she wasn't forced. For me, the order is Lyn, Hector, Ephraim, Roy, Eliwood, Eirika.

Tethys and Nils are my two favorites. Then Elphin, then Lalum and Ninian.

I probably should have mentioned, I may very well download a "completed game" save in order to unlock Pelleas early. I dislike having a branch of magic made completely unavailable to me. I fear no training exercise! I have married Azel to Lachesis, used Ronan as a primary fighter, and trained both Sophia AND Cecilia (in the same playthrough, no less!) >:3 Radiant Dawn, however, has more exacting requirements for its ending than most, considering the strange setup of the final boss and the whole "blessed weapons" thing. The stat caps also caused me some concern. I always set aside at least two spots in my army for "crap characters I will be training anyway," but in Radiant Dawn's case, MOST of the characters I like are regarded as low-tier and the standards they needed to clear seemed to be higher. Thus, I was concerned. However, this is all very reassuring, thank you everyone :) I'm not planning to make it a "mage-only playthrough," either, so there will be some fighters along to help out and tank hits, and not all of the mages will be coming with (i.e. no Oliver... *shudders*) I can say for certain that Ilyana, Soren, Calill, and Bastian will make the "likability" cut, as will Sanaki (who is indeed required for endgame,) but I don't know if the others will or not. I suppose I'll just have to get there and see. As for blessed tomes, the Rex's and Nosferatu seem like a must, but below that, WOULD it be best to bless the S-ranked tomes such as Bolganone? Or would it be better to bless some siege tomes instead?