Cyan1456

Okay without spoiling anything else for me since I wanna go in blind, is there a route split?

Yeah I can't peg that against IS. That sounds like the writer's own fault for going over the limit they asked.

This. The main drawback in using character customization but pre-rendered cutscenes is the fact they practically need to cover the MC's face to keep immersion. This has the side effect of making some season come across as awkwardly shot and severely limits how expressive they can make the MC at important moments.

I'm honestly kinda intrigued! I feel like the amnesia bit has stronger potential in this setting because of how intricately tied Alear is to it as the Holy Dragon. My personal hope is that: A) They give them a fun personality. I thought Corrin being naive and the center of the universe was hard to read and it was even worse when Byleth did it without a personality. Even if they are worshipped as a dragon to an extent, I want the story to play that. Maybe give it strong political implications, have it be an inconvenience for them relationship or storywise, or heck just make it really funny to watch! B) I really really hope they do something cool with their amnesia. The context behind it is genuinely fascinating: they've just been slumbering for so long they ended up forgetting pretty much everything about themselves (unless my info is wrong). The fact that they are likely instrumental to the world's history means this could bring about a lot of interesting possibilities. For example, their relationship with each of the four nations, or perhaps maybe a past version of them did something that'll bite them in the present. That's not even getting to them possibly having much closer ties to the Fell Dragon since it, too, has that red-blue design motif (if you look at the CG portion of the trailer).

Yeah the designs are definitely going for a higher fantasy feel this time around for sure, harkening back to older Fire Emblem's leanings. We've also barely seen most of them, and I don't really see how they're all that "generic" to begin with? Yeah, definitely the Knight guy is a bit eh, but the other designs have a lot of creative flair to them (the dark mage flapper is probably one of my faves) or have some decent thought put in (just how well the christmas knights complement each other designwise this time). At worst they're no better than any other of Fire Emblem's previous designs, just brighter and more eye-catching. Especially since, the series always has always taken from the classical medieval fantasy bit. Again, like I said, tropes are tools. Three Houses wasn't any less tropey than Awakening or Fates. Because stories are MADE of tropes the same way trees are made of bark. You're talking about cliches. And also I really wouldn't peg Three Houses any bit higher than the other two writing wise- I had the exact same writing issues with it in a lot of places on top of being even less finished, the worldbuilding isn't necessarily "good" as it is "detailed" which are two very different things while also actively refusing to explore its most important faction (Church), and STILL has the Player Worship issue the previous entries had except in some cases worse because Byleth is even more of a self-insert due to a lack of personality or real sense of agency apart from the player (even when the plot tries to act like they developed one). Even the gameplay is a stepdown from Conquest imo. I'd welcome a return to a more traditional and linear approach for this game. Especially since when Fire Emblem does it well, it really can do it well. As far as I know, FE is at it's best when the plot is heavily character focused, and I'm honestly hopeful and intrigued by how the protag this time, Alear, appears to be incredibly tied to the world's history.

I have the opposite reception. I feel like the promise of a more linear story is already an improvement since IS (and KT for the matter) make it perfectly clear that branching routes is too much for them. C'mon in Three Houses only ONE route out of the 4 can be considered competently written or even finished. CF was rushed and SS and VW were near clones of each other whose primary revelations come from an info dump literally before the end. Even the worldbuilding was clumsily done more often than not (and more detailed than actually present), especially since it constantly refuses to explore the two most important factions to the game's setting, and is frustratingly vague on many fronts (seriously, it feels like most arguments on 3H is more about what happened rather than the ideals set forth). 3 Hopes which was also done by KT was also a kind of a mess in a lot of places after the promising demo so it's not like they're any better than IS in that regard. FE's greatest strength has always been its characters, even at its lower points, so I'm hoping for a more character-focused narrative like AM was. On another note, Engage is almost immediately more visually impressive than what we've had before. The backgrounds and colors are vibrant and much more visually pleasing than how grey and washed out a lot of things looked like in Three Houses. Also, as someone who's followed Mika Pikazo, I am genuinely excited to see more of the characters, especially since what we've got was pretty dang good, I mean look at these twins: They're probably the most visually pleasing Christmas Knights (at least that's what I think their archetype is), we've got in a long while. I love how their facial structures and eyes are similar enough you could easily recognize them as twins but are still very distinct in how they contrast one another in more than just primary color (namely outfit and hair). The boy's design is probably my favorite. Also IMO I don't think Alear's design is necessarily bad, the hair is just a weird design choice. Otherwise I'd hardly call it ugly or even that hard to look at. The female/male difference is also way better here imo, the female design is a lot closer to the male one with enough differences to be unique and definitely a step up from female Byleth. Nah I think they're referring to her: A bit cut off, but based off of her headdress (which resembles a flapper veil) and cape thing it looks like her look is more so after a gothic-noir flapper, with inspirations from gothic lolita fashion. I don't really mind it being more sexualized imo since this game seems to be going for a more high fantasy kinda feel, so long as it fits the character and looks cool when we see it in full, I'm perfectly fine with it. It's cool and I don't think I've seen many dark mages in fantasy inspired by 1920s fashion. Also very very minor gripe, but tropes are tools and common literary conventions. Complaining a story has tropes is like complaining a tree has wood. I think you mean cliches and such.

First of all, just like eclipse said, it's very early to judge. Second of all, a story doesn't need to have "grey morality" or even complex villains to be good. Even if the primary villains this time are totally one-note, so long as they do interesting things with the other characters conduct the plot in a fascinating way, it'll be fine imo. It looks like there's going to be quite a bit of focus between the four countries described in the trailer, and Alear's amnesia does bring genuine intrigue since they are the Tiki of this game and are thus likely strongly entwined with the its history. Next IIRC the thing with Shin Kibayashi, wasn't that just due to him writing way more than they asked him for/wanted to use? Like I might be misremembering but his script had like 500 pages and they only asked for 50 or something?

A lot of people pointed this out, but I've seen it said that the Immaculate One would be a more meaningful final boss for VW. This is due to the fact that Rhea, like she is to the other two lords, is a good foil to Claude: both of them are essentially outcasts in a society they're meant to overlook, Lonely at the Top for the similar reasons. As soon as he finds out the truth behind the Church he noticeably eases up on Rhea, it'd be much more interesting if his final fight was with someone he knew shared his pain of isolation and understood the difficulties of coexistence between races like he does. On another note, apparently there's quite a few more pages of the interview after this (I heard that there's like 20 if I'm not mistaken), do we have any details on those rn?

I'm thinking we might get a flashback DLC or something where we get to play as Seiros. I know it's unlikely but I really wish for an actual Rhea route unlike what we got. She's a major player, make her a lord dangit! Then again having TWO enlightened ones in a single playthrough sounds absolutely busted. On a side note I do hope the devs learn to scale back on future games. It does not look good on a professional game company to have two routes of their branching story game to be near identical. In hindsight it's actually kind of a miracle on how well Azure Moon turned out. It's the closest to a traditional FE story so I get how they probably didn't have to touch it up as they were switching things around.

Cu Chullain

According to the wiki: approx. 1065 The Southern Church, based in Enbarr, leads a massive insurrection throughout the Adrestian Empire which is put down. The Emperor exiles the bishop who led the uprising and replaces the Church with the Ministry of Religion under House Varley. Sorry I miscounted it's closer to a hundred-twenty years but my point still stands. In the timeline the game starts in 1185. The most of anything we here about the Central Church doing something about it is from a few priests saying they hope relations will get better once Edelgard enrolls in Garreg Mach. And before anyone brings it up it's unlikely Rhea was involved in this mainly because she's still rather fond of Wilhelm's family: he was the first human she ever trusted and even when she goes mad in CF she still struggles with the idea that she'll have to kill his descendant in her fight dialogue with Edelgard this happens even if you kill Seteth and Flayne. It's another thing that goes against the "Rhea would attack the Empire if the flame emperor stayed inactive" bit.

Any change that radical happening so fast is gonna break a lot of bones. Again, first of all most commoners wouldn't even notice the difference because as it's been stated in her support with Constance, a majority of the government officials she'll start off with will most likely already been nobles by birth since public education wouldn't have been instated yet. Next, she can't just pick some random schmoes to be in positions of authority since, again, public education hadn't been established yet so it's unlikely they'd be qualified, lowering the pool of people she can choose. She has to first properly integrate public education which could take quite a few years and even more for more people to live up to whatever she sets her standards for for a person fit to rule. That's not a change you can force, it's something the common folk bring about themselves. I'm saying Jotari's assertions that her system would have such an affect so quickly are improbable. The Kingdom and Alliance wouldn't feel any pushback from the commonfolk because that's assuming that Edelgard can instantly install her system at its fullest capacity and the Claude nor Dmitri wouldn't have made any reforms by then. It doesn't really matter how good or bad her system is, though I'd like to point out that meritocracies have been widely considered to be a terrible political system and flat out a form of social darwinism. It sounds captivating, but in actual execution it's anything but. Yeah at the same time Jeralt flat out says they shouldn't have left the monastery at a later point in the game. And again, this feels like beating a dead horse, but the Western Church tried to kill her and/or her students multiple multiple times. That was easily the third and the only time where she actually did anything about it something the students didn't know. On Catherine, her friend was trying to assassinate a leading religious figure/her boss/ the woman that saved her life which would also have the effect of severely destabilizing Fodlan success or not. Her supports with Ashe, and I think it was Gilbert, suggest she didn't want to do that but by then he'd already made his choice. Seteth says they wouldn't have done anything if they were just trying to solve the issue diplomatically. She already doesn't care if people don't believe in the Goddess or follow her religion. Cyril straight-up doesn't share her beliefs and he doesn't feel pressured to convert despite being so devoted to her; the only time he does anything remotely religious is to honor Jeralt's death. Shamir is a straight-up atheist and works with her to the same extent as Catherine. Petra worships an entirely different religion and no one seems to really care about converting her, etc.. Seteth himself, who again works closely with Rhea, says that they wouldn't care about a difference of beliefs even in their own religion so long as they don't resort to violence. As people have pointed out, nothing would happen because Adrestia has been seperated from the Church for over 180 years before the game even started and Rhea did absolutely nothing. I've stated this earlier to but it doesn't even look like she has good control over her own Church. As a last point CF pushes Rhea to her absolute limits. Not saying any of that stuff is good, but it isn't a good way of judging her in a stable state of mind. she's PTSD'ing HARD, and it would be disingenous to say that's how she'd react normally. Imagine: The dude who had a hand in slaughtering your entire race and family came back and the person you view as your amnesiac mother suddenly sided with him. That's essentially how she saw it.

Yeah kinda gotta disagree here. Not even going into how much more flawed and corruptible a meritocracy is (and nobility/monarchy isn't exactly non-volatile to begin with), it's gonna take years upon years to fully implement such a radically new system. It's important to note that with the way she's planning on implementing it, the commoners won't really notice that much a difference at first aside from maybe being under new management that may or may not be good depending on if Edelgard's standards really are good markers for leadership. Remember, even if things change in Constance's support she notes that at first implementation most if not all government officials will come from noble stock because they were already raised with the tools to lead in mind. It's gonna take a while for her to properly implement public education, convince enough people it's important to prioritize having an extra hand around the house for farming/cooking/hunting/ etc., and then finally have the general populace catch up. And that 's WITHOUT any sort of hiccups or unforeseen circumstances along the way. Regardless of how you feel about her system it's gonna take a LONG LONG time before it makes any ripples in other countries or is fully implemented. Such a radical change doesn't just happen over night or a few months, it takes YEARS.

Oh yeah I know that, I just felt like it was one of those things that was brought up and forgotten in-story. It doesn't have to be to this extend but I was thinking it'd have some relevancy.

I really like this! I do feel that it's ridiculous such an important feature as time travel bestowed by a GOD is basically an overglorified justification for a game mechanic in-story. Also thank you for showing me a fic that doesn't demonized Rhea. We need more of those.

I feel like people are ignoring the fact that she unambiguously views the Kingdom and Alliance as illegitimate, she says so herself in her first few lines at the monastery and even includes that fact in her manifesto. And again, she didn't need to attack the Church it already doesn't have power in Adrestia. It didn't for the last 180 years. According to the timeline the Church has been dissolved for over 180 years and the most they do about it is hope relations will smooth over once Edelgard goes to Garreg Mach. If we're talking about beliefs, both Claude and Dmitri share similar views of inequality, if Edelgard were to just speak to them it's likely they would've included solving Crest inequalities in their reforms. There's also the fact that she captures Rhea in every route except her own at the very start of that 5 year gap. She easily could've stopped there and made demands of the Church. Tensions on the border would be rough for a couple of years but it wouldn't escalate to that level of fighting in-game. And even so it's not like the Church has control over what the nobility in the other countries do so trying to get them to do anything is a moot point. According to Seteth, the Church discourages a divide by class, and yet they can't even enforce that within Garreg Mach.

I don't really see that thing happening with Dmitri. He did go full boar in-story but that's only because he had definite proof that Edelgard was linked to the people who caused Duscur. First Rhea would have to know about the Flame Emperor at all and that Edelgard's linked to them, which is unlikely because even after thousands of years she was only able to suspect something like TWSITD but not have any concrete proof of it. She would have to know all of that and have definite evidence to present to Dmitri, and even then I'm thinking he'd confront Edelgard on its validity before starting an entire war. He'll do a lot of stuff when pushed to the edge but pushing him there is the issue. Remember: He had that evidence in his face in the main game, he wouldn't in this scenario since the Flame Emperor is even less active and they show up a grand total of like 3 times. That and it wouldn't really matter to Rhea. The Church of Seiros hasn't had any influence in Adrestia in almost 180 years before the start of the game and the Church itself hasn't really done anything except maybe a few bishops saying they're crossing fingers that Edelgard's time in Garreg Mach will smooth over relations. Having another Emperor that doesn't like the Church wouldn't really be much to worry about so long as said Emperor didn't actively try to attack it. So long as no one declares war on the whole continent she's pretty much square. Totally agree with the Claude thing though. I could also see him using it to his advantage. He's not one for causing large amounts of bloodshed, but he does seem like the person who'd use Almyra to strongarm diplomatic relations in Fodlan in his favor if the Kingdom and Empire were to weaken each other. Not necessarily causing any violence, but looming the threat over their heads enough that it forces them to oblige.

Deliberately attacking students some of which are royals and nobles, raiding a holy tomb, provoking and then secretly backing someone into assassinating a leading religious figure not once, but twice, goes beyond the scope of mostly words. Or do you mean that they only heard that by word of mouth? Then maybe I could kinda see that, but they still attacked them with the intent to kill in addition to trying to steal something worth more than food, all in front of Caspar depending on route. Imo I think it's just a writing inconsistency which I might let slide since I heard they outsource the support writing IIRC, or was that only for Fates? (Also, other highlight: MERCEDES being the only one to go "They totally deserved that" during the execution. Guess she has some Emile in her. I didn't see that coming and burst out laughing).

Dang Dorothea is doing way better than I thought she would. Pleasant surprise! I was sure Ferdie or Edel would've stomped her.

IIRC it was an investigation. As for the second part the point was that he was willing to personally kill the guy for doing that. Not really a criticism I just found it funny because I got the support almost immediately after the Western Church thing happened.

In all fairness this was pretty much the third time they tried to attack her and the second time they've directly endangered her students and Garreg Mach and she knows this. Not to mention, the relics are both the corpses of her fallen brethren and incredibly dangerous tools of destruction that create beasts. This was also changed from the original JP text for some reason, but Seteth states that they did in fact run an investigation and found them guilty which ties in to Ashe and Catherine's paralogue I think. I found the students' reactions to be kind weird imo, because in the feudalistic environment established in Three Houses' world an investigation followed by a quick verdict shouldn't have seemed so out of place. And this stuff is somewhat present as shown in AM and CF. In both cases near the end of their routes Edelgard and Dmitri are both in perfect positions to capture the other, hold them up for trial, have an official execution/imprisonment etc etc, especially since by then the war against their respective countries would be nearing an end. On a side note one thing I did find funny was that Caspar thought the thing with the Western Church was too far but was perfectly fine with murdering someone for stealing food in his support with Ashe.

Yeah going to war with the Empire would kinda defeat the whole "keep peace in Fodlan" thing she built the Church around. Plus, I think people are giving her way more power than what she actually has. Remember, Adrestia's already been giving the Church the middle finger for years now and they really haven't been able to do anything except hope diplomatic relations improve once Edelgard starts attending classes there. The Alliance is filled with nobles perfectly willing to backstab her and do in-game. Heck, she doesn't even really have a good support on her own sphere of control: The Western Church hates her guts and has frequently attempted to kill her, of which she only relatively recently had enough ammo to use against them. The Southern Church in Adrestia has long been dissolved way before the start of the game and they couldn't help that either. I seriously doubt Rhea has the power to convince or force either the Alliance or the Kingdom into war against Adrestia outside of their own interests. The Alliance seems like a hard no, mostly because they really aren't that loyal to the Church and Claude's MO is closer to political manipulation. I don't think she could get the Kingdom to do anything either since declaring war based on a difference of beliefs would be really OOC for Dmitri. The best attempt she could make would be to try to convince him that Edelgard was involved with Duscur, but if Edelgard doesn't act then A) she would have no basis for this, and B) Rhea wouldn't even know about her collaborating with TWSITD. Not saying Rhea is completely powerless; a big flaw of hers is that she plays whack-a-mole with her problems and doesn't really solve things that could become issues in the long term until they do. For example, she wasn't responsible for the Crest system and it would have popped up anyway due to their inherent value, but she still could've pushed harder with her soft power to create a better environment over time. Sure she could get in trouble for meddling to much in nobles' affairs, but it would make it easier for if they're devalued enough that their origins won't make an impact on her race.

Well you have to question how necessary it really was to unite all of Fodlan. Keep in mind, there was relative peace between the three nations regardless beforehand and the Alliance and Kingdom broke off from the Empire of their own volition. Yes, they've united Fodlan, but at the cost of thousands if not millions of innocent lives. This might be just me, but no matter how good an ideal you have it means nothing if you're willing to trample so many people over it. And the Church thing, Rhea was planning to step down anyway and make Byleth the Archbishop. Edelgard probably would've had decent relations because they knew each other beforehand, and she could have a sway in how things go politically.

1.) She already knew full well that the Western Church was corrupt and vying for power. Several characters confirm this like Ashe, Shamir, and Catherine, and this was far from the first time the Western Church acted against her, heck they've attacked the Central Church without prompting from TWSITD before through Christophe so there's no reason to think someone else could be involved. In Catherine's (I think) paralogue they straight up ambush her and Byleth's class when there was no indication that she was planning to execute anyone else except the bishop they found to be corrupt. And the moment you use lethal force (and keep in mind that it's shown that the Western Church has always resorted to lethal force first and foremost when dealing with Rhea) before trying to reason with someone, that person has absolutely no obligation to listen to you. You had the chance to reason beforehand, and being willing to kill someone for your ideals means you should expect to be killed back in retaliation. Keep in mind, they not only tried to kill her, but several of her unsuspecting students, the heir to one of the three Kingdoms, on top of trying to steal weapons of incredible power and destruction (and we see how badly things can go if they fall into the wrong hands with Miklan), there was no possible way to justify that. And that's pretty much how Rhea operates: she has only ever used lethal force on people openly attacking the Church and meaning to do great physical harm or death. She's perfectly fine coexisting with people of different ideals, as shown with Garreg Mach- for all means and purposes it's a military academy that accepts people from all around the world. Not only do characters like Dedue and Petra worship an entirely different religion, but one of her closest aids, Shamir, is a straight up atheist. 2.) Eh I'll give you that one. Still it's unfair to pin the Crests on Rhea when she has absolutely no control over them, and in fact would want them gone as much as Edelgard. Whether she wanted to or not- and remember, her main objective with the Church is to protect her kind from being hunted down by hiding the origins of the crests so a lack of crest system would be to her benefit- there still would have been a crest system because the 10 Elites would've had enough time to use and spread information about them. Wars take a long time, so there's reason to believe that the idea of Crests was at least visible to those who worked with the Ten Elites. Crests would've been inherently valued even without the Church of Seiros because of the physical and magical capabilities they offered. I guarantee you, even without the Church of Seiros nobility would still hound over crests- the Church just ensured no Nabateans would be slaughtered over it. What could have Rhea done? If she told people the truth it's liable to backfire and cause certain groups to go after the remnants of her kind- after all it happened once with Nemesis, so it's a very real danger. She couldn't just go around killing people who have them, not only is that totally monstrous given that some may just have been born with it, but it would've been nigh impossible since by the time she stopped Nemsis the Ten Elites had time to spread info on them, possibly have children, or transfer them via blood transfusion. If she vilified those with Crests and made them enemies of Fodlan then these people-who are essentially super powered because of said crests mind you- would easily turn against her. She essentially took a system that was going to happen no matter what and minimized the bloodshed.

1) Seteth already says they were identified in their involvement, and their entire defense in that one conversation was that they didn't think they'd be implicated. Plus, keep in mind, a majority of the one she did execute were already at the Holy Tomb. What needed to be investigated by that, other than the fact that they were caught blatantly red handed? I don't agree with it from a modern perspective, but given that the political system in Fire Emblem's always been run on a Medieval style, and given the situation she's perfectly in her bounds to do that. Edit: I'd like to clarify that for them to have caught the conspirators in the first place, there'd have to have been an investigation unless they were pointing fingers willy nilly. 2.) There's nothing indicating that's what happens, in fact Lysithea's Crimson Flower endings has her live out her full lifespan without crests shortening it unlike the other endings so yes, they in fact do disappear.