Ezrius

I think I'm in agreement. I have both Awakening and Fates (didn't end up getting SoV, but it sounds like most people dislike it's DLC model). I really enjoyed Awakening's DLC, as not only did it add a lot of replay value, grinding opportunities, and challenges that go beyond the main game's difficulty level, but as someone that hadn't played earlier games it exposed me to a lot of the characters from Fire Emblem's history (albeit in a very condensed form). The DLC from Fates... look, I get that Conquest was supposed to be more challenging and grinding's not supposed to be an option, but not everyone wants to be forced to play that way. You can always set limitations on yourself for challenge runs with no grinding, you can't add grinding to a game that doesn't have it. I disliked the DLC maps that I played with pre-set rosters at pre-set levels. I spend time building my army the way I want it, why do I have to play DLC with someone else's? That's just my opinion on it. So yeah, TL;DR: more DLC like Awakening, where I can learn about other Fire Emblem characters and get more play time with the army I've created in the main game.

I think I like the idea of keeping Owain and Kjelle together and trying the Grandmaster / Bride duo. It feeds my hunger for an interesting combo enough to be fun. I sometimes forget that Ignis could be a thing for Owain, too. It sounds like it may be best to swap Yarne and Inigo, with Inigo and Severa paired as well as Noire and Yarne. This will give Noire as a sniper a solid Zerker support and Severa and Inigo could be very flexible. I could go back to Virion!Severa and Frederick!Inigo, or stick with Vaike!Severa and Virion!Inigo if I’m willing to live with the lack of a reasonable proc (it was bothering me but I was trying to find an excuse to keep Virion worked in). I could also leave poor Virion stag and do Vaike!Severa and Frederick!Inigo for the full-power, Luna, dumb brute couple. Gregor!Laurent makes more sense to me now. It’s easy to focus on Apotheosis too much and lose sight of the main game. I really appreciate your replies. I’m looking forward to this run and feel a lot more confident in my team now.

I took a long look at it and also realized that many of the pairing outside of Robin / Lissa were... basically the same pairings I always do. So I have shuffled it a bit. Having Robin marry Lissa is slightly problematic when matching up 2nd gen supports thanks to the Lucina / Owain / Cynthia creep factor. If it comes down to it, though, this is a feudal setting and, well, just look at Game of Thrones. Anyway, here are some edits with a few parents rotated around: Robin (+Mag/-Def) / Lissa I could consider changing it to (+Spd/-Def), but again that's always been my go-to and I wanted to be a little different this time. I'm not very far in yet (Chpt 5, I think), so it's negotiable. Chrom / Sumia As you noted. Nothing wrong here. Sumia!Lucina / Henry!Gerome Presently thinking Sniper / Berserker Vaike!Severa / Stahl!Yarne I've done Virion!Severa eleventy billion times. Vaike gives more Str with just -1 Spd and gives her Axefaire and Luna. Probably Hero / Berserker? Virion!Inigo / Gaius!Noire I like Virion, and I vaguely remember Virion / Cordelia being a good support? Assassin / Sniper, probably. I was thinking a couple snipers, but it's debatable. Chrom!Cynthia / Ricken/Gregor!Laurent You'll notice 3 physical leaning pairs of kids and 3 magical. Side effect of marrying 1st gen is you always feel like you're wasting another good father. Ricken would make Laurent hit harder as a support (and normally I'd have given him to Owain), Gregor... gives Armsthrift, I guess. I'm not planning on having Laurent up front so not sure if he needs Gregor as much. It's up for debate. Robin!Owain / Donnel!Kjelle Probably Sage / Bride? Owain was someone I was considering for Trickster, but it's definitely an awkward class and better suited as a support (somewhat nice pair-up bonuses). I ended up with one female child that may be more suited as a physical unit probably needing to pair with a magic user, so I thought Kjelle on Bride was better if I wanted Noire to be my Sniper. Lon'qu!Brady / Lissa!Morgan These two are probably just silly when it comes to power level. Not concerned. Olivia Special Dance. Katarina Falcon Knight. Rally Str, Rally Spd, Rally Move, Rally Heart, Rally Spectrum. Equipped with staves to heal/rescue. Palle Falcon Knight. Rally Mag, Rally Spd, Rally Move, Rally Heart, Rally Spectrum. Equipped with staves to heal/rescue. Flex Spot Is a third Rally / Staffbot necessary? This was the spot Frederick occupied, more as a DualGuard+/protector for Olivia than anything else. How useful would an independent, non-dancer unit be. Virion would be a sitting duck, right?

No particular order: PS4: Final Fantasy VII Remake: The never-ending story of this game that was finally announced. More infuriating than the lack of FES news? Has the wait made it impossible for this game to live up to the hype? I feel like as a fan of the original, I need it to be insanely faithful, but younger gamers want it to feel like a modern game. This announcement, along with a fierce desire to play MGS4, is the reason I bought a PS4. Soul Calibur 6: [Tentative] I enjoyed SC:IV. It was a fun game and I played it for quite a while when I just wanted some fighting game fun. I purchased SC:V, and I've barely touched it. Seeing that they're bringing back legacy characters that they removed is a good sign, but I'm taking a wait-and-see approach on this one. Switch: Fire Emblem Switch: Awakening on 3DS opened me up to Fire Emblem, and despite how the community may be conflicted about its feelings about this game, I'm glad for it. An old Final Fantasy Tactics lover like myself was easily drawn to this, and then some. Megaman X Legacy Collection: I love this series. It faded hard after X4, but I still love it. Disgaea 1 Complete: I love this series, as well, and the characters from the original are still my favorites. Disgaea D2 wasn't quite what I was hoping for, but D5 and the Switch was a match made in heaven. Really hope this delivers as an HD Remake with some of the QoL improvements the recent installments have brought to the experience. I can imagine there's potential for some nice DLC "guests" from later in the series as well. Pokemon Switch: Rumors sound intriguing. I had a completed living Pokedex before Sun/Moon came out, but my daughter was born and I never really had time to play it, so I'm behind the times again. As a fan of the series since my copy of Blue, and a big fan of my Switch, some terrible news would need to come out for me to skip this. Super Smash Bros. Switch: What needs to be said about this series that isn't already known. My wife is not a gamer at all but even she'd happily play this. Dragon Ball FighterZ(?): This game looks like the DBZ fighter I've always wanted. I wanted it on PS4, but with so many children's movies and shows occupying the PS4 most of the time in our house, having it on the Switch would be so much more convenient. Since before it's release, people have been talking about it being a prime target for a Switch port, so I've held off hoping that becomes a reality.

A little bit of a bummer, potentially. I made the choice to upgrade to a Switch, in part, because of Fire Emblem Warriors. I have a Zelda OoT 3DS that can't play "New" 3DS games or Virtual Console games, so I figured if I wanted to upgrade the Switch made more sense than the New 3DS, especially with Zelda BotW, Disgaea 5, and the announcement that Fire Emblem Switch would be a thing. Now my dream of a portable Super Mario RPG will probably continue to evade me. Sigh. Thanks, Nintendo.

Reina and Peri in Revelations. Seriously. Just cut them loose and let them annihilate your enemies together while laughing maniacally and falling in love.

Going to be doing some traveling for work and figure I’ll start bringing my 3DS and replay Awakening and Fates as we await more news on the FES front. Planning on doing for-fun playthroughs, so no limits that should make anything but maybe Apotheosis much more than a cakewalk. My only restriction is not to marry 2nd gen for my Robin (just find it awkward AF). I’ve always done +Spd Robins so I’m going to try something a bit different this time. I’ll just list 20 for an assumed Apotheosis run (which surprisingly I’ve never actually done): Robin (+Mag/-Def) / Lissa Chrom / Sumia Sumia!Lucina / Henry!Gerome Virion!Severa / Stahl!Yarne Donnel!Kjelle / Fredrick!Inigo Chrom!Cynthia / Gregor!Laurent Gaius!Noire / Robin!Owain Lissa!Morgan / Lon’qu!Brady Frederick / Olivia (w/Special Dance) Katarina (Rally/Staffbot) Palle (Rally/Staffbot) I’m tempted to try some non-traditional classes, because I don’t want to just walk in there with all Sages. A Trickster or two, for example. Pretty open to fun suggestions, but Severa will probably be a Wyvern Lord and Gerome & Yarne will probably be Berserkers. Not all the children pairings are set in stone either, I'm just bad at figuring all the math out quickly. I don't really like Nah because she looks like she's 8, but she'll probably exist as Vaike!Nah just for completion's sake.

I went with Cherche, though I always felt Say'ri is overlooked due to her in-game support issues causing people to forget how good her design looks. Surprised Aversa was omitted. Wouldn't change my vote, but still a bit surprised given her... attributes.

If Nintendo made another, I'd want more Fire Emblem Warriors, to be honest. What if it was Capcom? Megaman/Megaman X Warriors?

I agree with @Etheus that there could have been a thief/ninja class, especially seeing Olivia's moveset and the way she holds her blade. For Fates, I'd put Kaze and Kagero in for ninja goodness. For Awakening, I'd put Gaius, but a case could have easily been made for Nowi (and an Adult Tiki costume) I'm not very well-versed in Shadow Dragon, so I'm sure other folks can chime in better than I.

What are generally considered ideal builds in this game? I'm surprised how much trouble I've been having finding such information (though it's not as though the game is oppressively difficult), at least since some of the DLC has come out with more Skills and Weapon Attributes. Astra, Luna, Luck+20 seem automatic. With the level cap heightened, have the luck scores become high enough that Lethality is basically a must now as well? The new Galeforce ability seems like it may make the list now, with the last slot depending on the character but likely Solidarity, maybe Resonating Power on Owain and Celica, and Awakening on Tiki? I guess I almost forgot Trample, but is that maybe an option for characters with lower Luck? Also curious if people ever make support specialists out of lower-tier characters, with skills like Dracoshield and Amaterasu.

If I'm making a true wishlist, I have to assume at least one unlikely thing is going to happen, so I'm going to pretend Hidden Weapons aren't outside the realm of possibility. I'm also going to do what most others have and assume they'd be extremely likely to have Awakening and Fates packs. Awakening Pack: Gaius - Now that I've seen Olivia's moveset, he seems even more possible. Nowi - Another stone user and a lazy clone of Tiki, probably A toss-up. I could see them going with Cherche, Severa, or Inigo very easily and making them clones. Fates Pack: Kaze - Not sure if they'd make hidden weapons a thing or not, but Olivia's base could work with "daggers" Kaguro - Obviously along the same reasoning as Kaze. Not sure. Saizo, if they wanted to go all-ninja, possibly Setsuna or Nina if they wanted to add another archer. Blazing Blade: Hector - He'd need a unique set, unless they got super lazy and threw him on a horse. Eliwood - Based off Xander's set but with some unique twists Nino - Mage base, obviously

Cleric (Staves) -> Trickster (Swords,Staves) / War Monk (Axes,Staves) Outside of Corrin-locked Hoshidan Noble, there are no Sword/Staff classes and they completely boycotted Axe/Staff. I'm not good at designing beyond that, but I feel like I'd be more likely to create a trickster in this game than I was in Awakening. (Maybe it's just because my Adventurer Nina is nuts with the Shining Bow)

Lodestar. I like high-speed characters, I like non-mounted units despite gameplay benefit, I prefer physical over magic classes, it looks better than Swordmaster (to me), and it can still S-Rank Swords for Yato.

Mixed bag for me. I really like a few of the characters like Anna and Soleil (having only played Conquest thus far), and I could take or leave some of the rest. To be fair though, that's no different than non-child characters. I studied Biology and Organic Evolution fairly extensively at one point, so the concept appeals to me and I'll never vote for it to be done away with entirely, but I'm not a series veteran so my only real comparison is Awakening. In that case, I find this format more reasonable. The child characters feel more comparable to the 1st gen characters in Fates, which I prefer. The fact that the majority of 1st gen characters were completely overshadowed by the children in Awakening, particularly the fact that Male Robin became iffy in comparison, was a pretty annoying quirk. From a plot standpoint... these have been pretty goofy in both cases. I would argue Awakening actually handled the storytelling of the children better, where . I think if I were to design an ideal scenario for the next game, I would include an actual time skip. The Awakening/Fates era of Fire Emblem is already leaning on anime tropes a bit, so they might as well use one that makes sense. Age the 1st gen sprites/models between two "acts" and then introduce the children. Maybe the characters thought they were successful in the first act but missed the underlying cause of the conflict. Or maybe it's another conflict altogether. Either way, the only real issue with this would be that this is a bit more design work for the 1st gen characters, but realistically its a slightly adjusted skin and perhaps a height difference for a couple. it would certainly make more sense and be more grounded.