Bovinian

Not too sure about the older games, but that dancer example was pretty much already done by RD's plot and I would hope that for this game IS takes an approach that wasn't really explored by any of the past entries. Still beats "evil guy revives big ass dragon to end the world" though

I'm almost positive her name's not going to be Aqua in the localization, it sounds way too JRPG for Fire Emblem...or actually, it could be a fake name that she goes by until her real identity is revealed kinda like Lucina/Marth. Can't it be both?

For some reason Marx and Ryouma strike me as the type of guys who start out with endgame-worthy stats and join you for a couple of earlygame chapters (notably Chapter 6) before disappearing forever availability-wise for plot-related reasons, and rejoin your party near the end. They just don't seem like they could be weak enough to allow for consistent availability throughout the plot while maintaining game balance, especially since they're both wielding legendary weapons. On the other hand, Archer (sniper?) and Dark Knight bros look like the type to start prepromoted, join reasonably early and have alright growths (possibly more of an Oifey type to contrast with the butler Jeigans?)

Yeah, that's why I made sure to call them fences instead of walls in the first part of my comment because the fences actually had holes that archers could shoot through. Iirc 2-range attacks couldn't be used through solid walls. What I was really trying to get at was, a supporting unit shouldn't be able to attack if they can't normally attack at that range with their equipped weapon from the tile they're standing on. In Awakening, a unit using a 1-range weapon could attack an enemy up to four tiles away if standing next to an ally with a longbow...I mean come on. Not to mention, keeping attack ranges consistent would contribute to Pair Up becoming less broken and promote more careful positioning strategy (e.g. Should I attack this guy from 2 range so I don't get counterattacked? Or should I attack from 1 range and risk taking an axe in the face so my swordmaster partner can get in a hit?). Honestly don't see why this wasn't the case to begin with.

^That's pretty funny, it's like their "fuck, I'm screwed" or "chikusho" expression. Anyways not really relevant but I really hope they change the dual strike mechanic to make at least SLIGHTLY more sense. If my mage/archer is attacking an enemy from 2 range through a fence, then don't suddenly give his partner melee unit the ability to jump through and attack as well. This looks especially ridiculous when the melee unit in question is a knight (seriously they take even longer than Tellius armors to even reach their target, while RUNNING). Not to mention in some cases the (foot-unit) partner literally just flies/hovers across the field >_> Since the transitions from map to battle seem to stay true to the actual surrounding terrain from what we've seen, this might indeed mean that walls will stay walls and not disappear into thin air mid-fight *fingers crossed*

For what it's worth, even those standard pronoun rules are broken sometimes. For instance, Sully in the Japanese version refers to herself as 'boku' which is generally only used by males. To be fair, tomboys using male-associated speech is not unheard of but dudes using words like 'atashi' would just be plain wrong. EDIT: If gender-locked classes and marriage are gone, and the voice acting/dialogue word choice is very carefully handled, it would be hilarious if Tsubaki's gender was just left ambiguous for the entire game. I'm leaning towards him being a guy though.

I see. It seems like we value different things based on our respective playstyles. Starting at around C17 I like to let the children handle most of the combat (Lucina, Morgan, and two others - Severa and Laurent work well for me). FeMU w/ Galeforce can still get rid of one problem enemy (I like to pair her with Tharja for the Mag boosts, so Hex/Anathema are active anyway), then Rally on her second action if necessary to help the kids reach Spd/ORKO thresholds. I usually have Lucina go Tact -> Merc as soon as I get her so she picks up the useful skills and blasts through 18 easy levelups, ending at Bow Knight. She does just fine sticking to swords and looks adorable in the Tactician jacket. I have Laurent go through DM as well so even after I ditch Tharja for Chrom Anathema is still a thing.

I have a question about Lunatic+. Why is it generally considered the optimal strategy to reclass Avatar to Mercenary or Dark Mage early on? I guess it makes sense if playing as MaMU, but when I play as FeMU I find it more effective to go Tactician (promote ASAP) -> Grandmaster 15 -> Dark Flier 15 -> Sorcerer. I know going this route shits all over her internal level, but I always manage to get Galeforce in time to pass down to Lucina (and later Morgan) on a Classic no-Outrealm playthrough, not to mention these additional advantages: - Ignis (fairly reliable proc) - RALLY SPECTRUM - Gives at least two additional Galeforce users for a much stronger player phase - Never have to give up tomes, and never have to deal with swordlock (levin swords are expensive) - Better stats for surviving difficult chapters like 5 and 6 I know Armsthrift is great and all, but Avatar's kids can easily SS to Merc and get it on their own. Is there something that I'm missing, that's valuable enough to compensate for not having the above perks? I admit that this is contingent on getting lucky enough to have a Master Seal by Chapter 4-5ish, which is the only real drawback as far as I can tell.

I think this screenshot essentially disproves the theory that the icon background colors represent durability. Not only would it be a strange coincidence for both weapons to have exactly the same remaining durability, but the enemy probably wouldn't have used his weapon that many times to begin with. That said, I also hope they haven't gotten rid of finite usage entirely and wonder where they are going with this...

My guess is that one of them allows him to use the Dragon's Vein command we saw in the trailer. The bigger circle looks like it might be reserved for a unique personal skill (I really hope this is the case, it would go a long way in giving characters distinct qualities) so maybe that one? Then the remaining two could be generic level 1 and 10 class skills if they decided to keep the system from Awakening. This is more of a mechanics-based issue than anything, but it is sort of interesting how Kamui apparently only has 4 displayed crit. The 23 avoid is consistent with his speed and luck stats going off Awakening's calcs, and judging by the Atk and Hit numbers the Yatogami appears to have 8 mt and 85 hit, assuming no external influences. But if crit is based on the standard Skill/2 formula, it should be displayed as 6 instead of 4 (assuming Yatogami lacks innate crit). Maybe the formula's been changed to Skill/3?