Pete-of-the-Forge

Crest #17 look like a reversed image of the Moon Rune from the Suikoden series.

The thing about Pikomaro is that they are capable of doing good designs. They did Sephiran for that "Hundred Songs of Heroes" thing for the 25th Anniversary, and he looked great. [link to picture because my computer doesn't want to work properly: https://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/fireemblem/images/0/0a/Sephiran_card_25.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20150816200902] Meanwhile, Akihiro Yamada did Arvis for the original TCG, and I'm not as fond of it as the work he's done so far for Heroes. Personally, I'd put Sachiko Wada at the top. Apart from the regular accolades, I like how she showed enough class to not flaunt Cherche's weirdly exposed back. Other than that, I'm also fond of Akira (Lon'qu, Raven), Tomoyo Asatani (Ephraim), Meka (Ike), and Akihiro Yamada. Below them would be Mayo (Sheena), Tobi (Klein), Hako Itagaki (Draug, Gordin)... a lot actually. I always have trouble ranking things. But definitely down towards the bottom would be Sakura Miwabe (Lachesis), Yura (Navarre), and Masafumi Takagi (Clair). Maybe Hako (Elise) and Kimihiko Fujisaki (Jakob) too. Honestly, we should have an ongoing "Rank this Artist" thread.

It's nice to see Melissa Fahn pop up in something again. She always pops up when you least suspect her to. And kudos on getting Xander Mobus. He seems to be quite in demand. I wonder if this is a sign that he might pop up in Warriors, much like how Max Mittelman, Cherami Leigh and Greg Chun voiced characters in Heroes before showing up in Shadows of Valentia.

Orsin looks like he was drawn by Meka. He has a similar face to Cain and Ike from Heroes. Leif looks nice. Though... well, in a bunch of his early art (like the original TCG), he sometimes had short sleeves and I would kind of preferred it if they went with that over the longer sleeves. But that's a minor thing. He's still my favorite Lord. Lookin' forward to seeing the rest!

I really like Anna's outfit. Is Kozaki still the artist for this game? If so, then it looks like he still has a few good designs left in him yet (unless this is one of those situations like Awakening where he only designed the characters and not the outfits). Marth on the other hand still looks like a guy cosplaying as Marth rather than the Hero King himself.

I never really cared for his design, but his art in this game is pretty nice/ Any guesses as to who the artist is? He doesn't quite look like anyone already in the game, so maybe another new one.

Looks like I was wrong on that front. You misunderstand. I meant that because half the bonus units were free (the 20% ones), I assumed half the bonus units would be free for this one. Instead, only a fourth are. I didn't consider the Alm/Celica division, though it's weird that Alm's 5*s are bonus but Celica's aren't. EDIT: Can someone delete the above post? I made a slip-up and can't for the life of me figure out how to get rid of it.

You misunderstand. I meant that because half the bonus units were free (the 20% ones), I assumed half the bonus units would be free for this one. Instead, only a fourth are. I didn't consider the Alm/Celica division, though it's weird that Alm's 5*s are bonus but Celica's aren't.

Not only did this blow the theory that we'll get existing characters as a reward, it also blew my theory that half the bonus units (the 20% ones specifically) will be free ones. I honestly can't decipher how they even determine them. It's not even like they decided to go with 5*-locked for 40%, 4* for 20%. Anyway... any guesses on who did Tobin's art? He looks a bit like he's drawn by the same person that did Ike and Cain. So... Meka?

So far, I have two quibbles with pronunciation and spelling which I assume are 8-4's responsibility. First, Rigel. I've always pronounced it like that star (or the alien planet from The Simpsons). Long "I", soft "G". But then the game pronounced it like it was spelled "Riggelle" Second: Berkut. It looks a bit Engrish-y, in my opinion. The way it's pronounced, it'd be nicer if it was spelled like "Bercoot" or something. I'm also still of the mind that "Valencia" and "Zophia" would be better choices, but that might've be a Nintendo decision.

Ah! So it does. Well then... I'll just show myself out, totally not feeling like and idiot or anything.

The guy at my store couldn't find his but he told me to just go to the other one in the mall (yes, my local mall has two Gamestops, both relatively close to each other) and they had one. You can always check other stores, if you a receipt from your pre-order or something like that. Tangentially related, but what does the "Remove film" sticker mean? Is there a layer of film that should be peeled off? I would check, but I'm paranoid about ruining it.

I saw this on Reddit. I admit, it made me smile: "American Boy"

Apparently, the voice cast has been leaked: https://imgur.com/a/i9kbR#h9cYkbA Chris Patton is indeed part of the cast, so it's conceivable that he's Kliff (I'm not watching any videos until release, so I can't confirm it myself). Same with Robbie Daymond and Tobin. It's cool to see Sean Chiplock on there (he was my ideal pick for Alm). I wonder who he's voicing. And Lucien Dodge and Carrie Keranen are yet more VAs from Trails of Cold Steel There's also a lot of carry-over from Heroes, which suggested earlier. A lot of Texas VAs too.

From what I remember, Amanda Winn Lee flat-out retired so she could take care of her son who had leukemia, but he has since got better. Now, one thing I've been thinking about: could we possibly use Heroes as a guide for possible VAs in this game. After all, Greg Chun and Cherami Leigh had several roles in that game, and later ended up voicing Lukas and Mae. Could there then be others, like Michael Sinterklaas or Wendee Lee, that pop up in this game?

A bit unrelated, but regarding Texas-based VAs, I've would have loved if the original VAs from the OAV that ended up in LA had roles in a Fire Emblem game. Spike Spencer (voice of "Mars") was Excellus in Awakening, but I'd rather they drop Yuri Lowenthal and have him reprise his original role as the Hero King. Also Amanda Winn Lee (Elice in the OAV) and her husband (Draug in the OAV) have also moved and she's seems to be picking up more video game roles after a long dry spell (recently she was Magnolia in Bravely Second). But I digress. Clive is definitely Grant George and I'm pretty sure Kamui is Bryce Papenbrook. And if Carrie Keranen pops up in this game, that'd be another VA from Trails of Cold Steel in a Fire Emblem game

It's cool that it's in Greek. Ancient Greek mythology has been a huge influence on the series from the beginning, with pegasus knights and names like "Macedon[ia]". Not mention that Marth is just a corruption of Mars. Even his famous pants-less outfit is just standard Ancient Greek attire with a breastplate, though it's probably more influenced by old Peplum (gladiator film) costumes than actual clothing from that era).

So we have Celica and Mae. For whatever reason, I'm expecting Valbar to appear on the banner. Maybe because he was on the original Gaiden cover. Saber seems like a given to me. Though that Masked Knight is a possibility after the Alm banner included the new Echoes character for his path. And if Celica becomes a tome user, I was thinking that there's a possibility that we might end up with another brave tome user, if they choose to reference Celica's Gale (she's a red so I guess wind magic is ruled out, but she can still have the effect).

The fact that we've never had anything like this in regards to Heroes makes me think that this can only be something big. I'd be thrilled if they announced something like more 3-stars, but it's probably something related to that permadeath mode.

Jedah looks like a Gamilon crossed with a vampire. I'm really glad they decided to go with more human-looking villains after Gaiden (at least, until Awakening gave us Validar). The bad guys still looked very evil and somewhat ugly, but at least they stuck to natural skin tones.

War elephants you say? Now all I need is to have all this in the Genealogy remake so I can reclass Hannibal to one. Mountains will be crossed. In all seriousness, these look pretty cool. I would've like some sort of legacy class like Dread Fighter in Awakening and Ballistician/Witch in Fates, but these look interesting (except for that Baron over-class. I would prefer a less-bulky non-mounted spear user like Sentinel). But still no axe user...

I just spent 25 orbs sniping blue orbs for a Reinhardt. I got Florina. 5 times in a row. Then I got Oboro.

And here I am not being that clear either. I meant that if they needed a merchant with red hair, they could've just used Anna who's kind of the DLC mascot. Anyway, it seems I stand corrected on the story maps. After the Direct, it appears that it's not just Alm, Celica and the villagers as kids which was my initial assumption (they had a clip of Python talking to Forsythe about Lukas and mentioned that we might be able to learn something about characters' backstories, so I assume that's what those are). And now that I think about it, extra dungeons might not be all that bad if they end up new and different enough. My main concern is that they'd just end up feeling generic. Here, here.

I just want to reiterate how thrilled I am that Hidari didn't give Python a pompadour. And I'm mildly disappointed that the DLC is just grinding. The most worthwhile DLC maps, in my opinion, were the ones with new classes. You never know though. Some of those rewards are vague. And there could always be a Season 2... I wonder if the story maps will focus on Alm and Celica as kids, or something else. Maybe how the Archanea characters got to Valentia? And they seem to be sticking with the "no Anna" thing, what with this DLC merchant dressing a lot like her (in merchant garb, with the big pack), and even has red hair to boot.

Saw this earlier. Clive sounds a bit like Grant George, but I could be wrong about that. It would make sense however, since the woman that voiced Panne in Awakening is his wife.