Icy Toast

Haha, are they serious? Odin's personal skill gives him +10 crit when equipping a forged weapon with a name consisting of 8 kanji? This must be the weirdest skill we've seen so far...

I don't think so, but if anyone's interested in translating them, here's a quick transcription to make things easier!

@BlueL: I'll be the first to admit that I exaggerated a bit here and there, as my aim was to make clear why certain elements in If could cause people to be concerned about the quality of the game and the future of the series, rather than to provide a fair critique of Awakening. I wasn't entirely serious about the mental disorder thing, although it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of anime characters could be diagnosed with one. The point I was trying to make, though, was that many of the archetypes popular among otaku seem to involve a distinct lack of emotional maturity that makes these characters think and behave very different from real people of their age. I wasn't talking about the supports specifically here, just the script in general. What I was trying to say wasn't simply that the characters talk too much about pies and too little about the war, but rather that when they do talk about the war, what is being said about the topic and the register in which it is being said just lack the kind of weight that would make the situation believable to me. Of course the game doesn't literally fail to inform me that there's a war going on, it's just that the way the characters on screen speak and behave often seems to clash with that information. I apologize if that point was unclear. English isn't my native tongue. If you played the localized version of the game that might explain why we experienced the dialogues differently. Playing the Japanese version, I constantly found myself reminded of generic, bland anime dialogues, but from what I've seen the localization spiced up the dialogues quite a bit. I somewhat regret using the word 'moe' now, because it's not exactly easy to define. You'll have to give me some time to think about that one.

I do not support the inclusion of avatar x character romance of any kind, be it straight or gay. If we're talking about supports between non-avatar characters, however, then sure, some canon same-sex couples would be a welcome addition to the series. Provided the writing is decent and the characters' sexual orientation isn't exploited as some sort of novelty, I'm pretty sure I'd enjoy reading their support convo's just as much as I would for any other couple. I don't really see why anyone would be opposed to this.

Honestly, I think don't anyone here is trying to judge the game before its out, but what we're talking about here is whether there's a need to be worried, as the topic title puts it. And I think I'm speaking for a lot of people here when I say that I'm only worried because I love this series and care about its future. I wouldn't be worried about it if I was planning on abandoning it anytime soon. (In other words: I'm still really excited about If, despite my misgivings about some of its elements.)

That's a great point, and well put. While I, like you, would personally prefer for FE not to go for the cornier, less serious approach you describe, I must agree that it is not inherently wrong. If done right, that is. I think you've really hit the nail on the head here. This pretty much says it all. This doesn't detract from your point at large, but I'd like to point out that that is, in fact, a mistranslation. Harold isn't talking about being touched in a literal sense, he's talking about being honored to have the opportunity to socialize with Kamui. The word he uses (触れ合う) can mean both, but the context suggests the intended meaning here is the non-literal one. (Although the pun is, no doubt, intended!)

I'm sorry if my post came off a little harsh. It wasn't really meant as a criticism of the topic/first post, though. In fact I only wrote a long rant about it because I think this is a discussion worth that's worth having. So don't feel bad about making this topic!

Hey, this list is a pretty cool idea! Hope you don't mind if I point out a couple of minor things that caught my eye in the first post. I believe the correct pronunciation here would be とうぎじょう. The translation isn't wrong or anything, but the word used in FE is 武器屋 (ぶきや). (A 武器庫 would imply a place to store weapons, whereas a 武器屋 is a place that sells weapons.) I don't know about this "training room" (are you sure it isn't simply the arena?), but the lottery is クジ引き屋 (くじびきや) And to make up for my nitpicking (sorry!) let me contribute some more words that could come in handy, especially in the Nohr route! 勝利条件 (しょうりじょうけん) = Victory condition(s) 目的 (もくてき) = Goal 敵全滅 (てきぜんめつ)= Defeat all enemies 敵将撃破 (てきしょうげきは)= Defeat the enemy leader 玉座 (ぎょくざ) = Throne 城門 (じょうもん) = Castle gate 防衛 (ぼうえい)= Defend 制圧 (せいあつ) = Seize 突破 (とっぱ) = Break through 残りX (のこりX) = X remaining (enemies/turns/whatever) ターン = turn(s) (So, as an example for anyone interested in seeing how these could be used in If, the victory condition shown in the My Castle trailer reads: "Victory Conditions - Defend the throne and defeat all enemies") Oh, and perhaps you could also add 射程 (しゃてい, range) to the list of stats?

I feel like this topic distorts the issue somewhat by suggesting that 'dumbing down strategic gameplay' and 'otaku pandering' are somehow connected. I'm not worried at all about the game being dumbed down in terms of gameplay, but some of the elements that pander to otaku tastes do bother me quite a bit. And that's because the real conflict isn't 'pandering VS gameplay', it's 'pandering VS building a convincing world, a decent story and interesting characters'. Now, just let me rant for a bit here to make clear what I mean by that. While I'm sure a lot of people would blame Awakening for starting the pandering trend, I'm inclined to say it actually started with New Mystery and the addition of our Mary Sue, excuse me, My Unit. Despite an utter lack of personality, MU is beloved and admired by most of the cast, just like your average harem anime protagonist. However, an obvious problem was presented by the fact that, unlike your average (harem) anime, many of the characters in (New) Mystery already had canon love interests other than MU. That's why they gave us Katarina: a perfect moe heroine, a word the Japanese unironically use to refer to those female characters who exist primarily to serve as a potential love interest for a self-insert protagonist. Her subplot makes this painfully obvious: it stops at nothing to stress how Katarina is entirely dependent on us, the player/self-insert to solve her problems and take care of her. (This is presumably a really attractive trait to many otaku, because it applies to about 90% of all heroines in harem anime, visual novels and light novels.) The reason it wasn't all that bad in New Mystery was the fact that it was a remake and most of the world, plot and cast was already there. Awakening, however, made things substantially worse. It gave the the entire cast some of that Katarina flavour by making every single character a potential marriage partner for the Avatar. I know that the marriage system was a very popular feature of Awakening, so let me explain why I think of this as 'making things worse'. Traditionally Fire Emblem characters were defined in terms of their personal background, their motivations for joining your army, their relationships with other units in your army, and perhaps 1 or 2 little personality quirks to make them stand out among the large cast of characters. The fact that each and every character could be married to the avatar in Awakening, however, facilitated a shift towards defining characters in terms of what they can offer the self-insert/player as a potential love interest. Obviously, this shift affects both the characters themselves and the scenes they appear in, as it means that to a certain degree each character is now deliberately designed and presented to the player as a package of moe/fetish features. To make matters worse, the features that appeal to many otaku include severe mental disorders, known by such terms as tsundere and yandere, to name two of the most notorious ones. In other words, characters that appeal to otaku tastes are often deliberately designed to think and behave in ways that are unfamiliar to emotionally mature human beings. This makes it incredibly difficult to write believable stories with characters specifically designed to please otaku, because their actions and words, while potentially amusing, do not usually reflect the kind of thoughts and feelings the reader/player might experience in a similar situation. Just watch a random moe anime and you'll know what I mean. Or no, wait, just play Awakening. Only on rare occasions does the game's script manage to convince that the people talking are actual knights fighting a war. Instead, throughout most of the game's story the tone is that of bunch of kids on a school trip. As we all know, this trend also affected the visual aspects of character design, with Awakening taking unrealistic armor designs to a whole new level in an attempt to make its characters even more appealing as love interests for the self-insert/player. Sure, Fire Emblem has always had unrealistic armor, but it has never been as in-your-face and (for me personally at least) immersion-breaking as it was in Awakening. And to add insult to injury, beach and onsen episodes were shoehorned into the game's universe through the glorified plothole known as the Outrealm gate, thus breaking down any shreds of believability that remained. All in the interest of marketing to the player the moe objects that the characters had become. So what is the point I'm trying to make here? "Fire Emblem Amie" and the hot springs may just be an optional 'fun little add on' as you (the OP) say, but they are symptoms of a much larger trend that has far-reaching implications for the the game's universe, characters, story, and writing. And those things are not optional add-ons. You have every right to like the new features, but it really shouldn't surprise you that those of us who aren't into the whole Waifu Emblem trend are worried about how it will affect the rest of the game. There's no doubt in my mind that the whole otaku-pandering was a conscious marketing decision. From the 4Gamer interview in April: - "In previous games we focused on creating a challenging SRPG, but since Awakening our priority has shifted to 'broadening the scope' of the series." - "If you're playing FE for the first time, we want you to think of this game as an anime you can be a part of, without having to worry too much about the SRPG elements."

I've considered importing a physical copy, but I couldn't stand the thought of having to wait for another week after the release date for it to arrive. So I ended up just buying/pre-loading the download version. With that said: whether $120 is a good deal or not depends entirely on how much value you attach to owning a limited edition. It's a rather steep price if you compare it to the actual price on the box (which is about $80), but with supply being as limited as it is, it's becoming a bit of a collector's item.

I don't think it's going to be 'watered down' at all. For each feature that is being removed we're getting at least two new ones. And besides, wouldn't weapon durability be kind of redundant in If? Like Solkia just said, its most important function in terms of strategic depth in previous games was to add a drawback to using your most powerful weapons (i.e. the fact that if you use it now you might no longer be able to use it at some point in the future). Since in If each weapon now already comes with its own unique combination of pros and cons, we no longer need weapon durability to make the choice between weapons an interesting one. The other thing weapon durability did in previous games was forcing you to make sure your units had enough uses left on their weapons before each battle, which was more of a chore than a strategic decision. To each their own, of course, but I won't be missing that at all.

I'll be playing the Japanese version of the game, but I strongly prefer the English names. The 'symmetry' in the Japanese names just makes them sound way too contrived and uninspired to me. Unless there's a really, really good in-world reason why the two countries/civilizations came to be called by these names, I can only think of it as the same kind of lazy naming/writing that plagued the Japanese version of Awakening. (And I must say that I'm really glad to see that once again the people doing the localization aren't afraid to take matters into their own hands and make up some more believable names, just like they did for Awakening.)

Well, like Vincent said, one of the screenshots shows Aqua picking up some soy beans (and presumably giving them to the player), so I think it's safe to assume you can get more types of materials than just the one you can harvest directly. Perhaps the 'specialties' are only a subset of the available materials? Oh, and it also seems like there's a 'mineral exchange' feature (it was shown very briefly in the My Castle trailer) that will let you trade 5 of one kind of mineral for 1 of a different kind. So one way or another you'll probably be able to acquire most if not all of the materials without streetpassing. It's probably just going to take more effort/time. I have to agree that friend list compatibility would be really nice though!

What if - plot twist! - the units you register after streetpass battles actually all end up in your prison? It'd make sense, seeing how they're attacking your castle and destroying your buildings...

Well, judging by their positions in the shop lists seen in the screenshots, 七難即滅 (which I'm honestly not sure how to translate) would have to be its Hoshido counterpart, but it's way more expensive and only has 2 uses. So if they're both status staves, I guess the Hoshido one would have to be a lot more dangerous. But then again, I can't really think of any status effect powerful enough to warrant blowing 1900G on for each use, so maybe the 七難即滅 is some sort of AoE-staff, like Fortify?

Just read it, and there were a couple of points I personally thought where interesting: - The Hoshido castle will be in an area rich in natural beauty, whereas the Nohr castle will be in a desolate area. I was secretly hoping they'd give us a choice of where to build our castle, but I guess not! - The dragon statue in the Nohr castle is shown to be named "Statue of [the/a] Dark Dragon" and the one in the Hoshido castle is named the "Statue of [the/a] Light Dragon" - The Nohr shop sells a 'Freeze' staff - Some functions that used to be in the main menu, like the sound room and the hubba tester, are now found inside a 'museum' building in your castle. Not sure if I like this. (Although perhaps they'll still be in the main menu as well?) - Your castle will have 1 type of food ingredient and 1 type of mineral as 'local specialties' (that players with other specialties can presumably obtain by visiting your castle) Oh, and then there's the screenshot with the map of the castle and what appears to be an overview ofthe minerals and food ingredients the player has collected that I also think is rather interesting! The icons on the top right of the bottom screen seem to confirm that the castle has a dawn-day-dusk-night cycle, which I think is pretty neat. There's also the dragon vein icon shown together with an empty gauge, which I'm going to assume is the same icon + gauge that we saw in the My Castle trailer when the player won a streetpass battle. I suppose this means winning streetpass battles (or maybe just winning battles in general?) is what earns you dragon vein points?

Hey, that windmill to the south-west of the Hoshidan capital looks familiar! I wonder where the bridge battle takes place, though. Hoshido doesn't seem to have a lot of rivers. Unless, of course, you're a royal who can do the the dragon vein thing!

Thanks for the welcomes! No, it was a Fimbulvetr tome. It's a long story.

I don't think it's fair to compare biased portrayals of countries and historical events to fictional stories about fictional wars between fictional nations. I'm not criticizing FE If's writers for trying to tell us that Japanese culture is better than Western culture, because I don't think that's what they're doing - it's all way too obvious for that. It's just that I'm somewhat bothered as well as amused by the fact that they seem to be entirely oblivious to the (mildly cringeworthy) caricatures they've created. (But let me add that that's in no way going to stop me from enjoying the game. And I can't really judge the story without playing the game first anyway! Maybe Nohr actually has good reasons for invading.)

I'll do both/all three eventually, but my first playthrough will definitely be Nohr! More diverse victory conditions and limited exp/money is a really big plus for me, and changing your country from within just seems much more interesting plot-wise than resisting the big bad agressor country like we've done in so many games before this. (Oh, and it's interesting how Nohr seems to be the more popular choice here, while Hoshido is pulling ahead in terms of pre-orders right now.)

I think it's a really good thing that they've given each side a distinct culture, with its own architecture, its own classes and its own weapons. It not only enriches the game's universe, it also makes the whole 'choosing a side' thing a lot more meaningful. It didn't necessarily have to be a Japanese-ish culture and a western-ish culture, but hey, those are the two cultures the developers probably know best. And it's only logical that they'd look to the cultures they know best as a source of inspiration. That said, I do agree with what Thane said. I'm not bothered by the fact that one of the two cultures is very Japanese-like, but it's a bit unfortunate that they decided to depict the Japanese side as morally superior to the Western side. Although I suppose there still is a possibility that things will end up looking a bit less black-and-white by the end of the game's story.

Really, the more I read about it, the more I like the direction they're taking with these character skills. It's going to make everyone so much more unique! As for the hubba tester, there's one more line that's only semi-visible in the scan. I'm 99% certain the vertical text to the left of the screenshot reads: ゲームには影響しない: "This will not influence the game". So no, I don't think it will be any more meaningful than it was in Awakening, but it's a fun feature nonetheless.

I'm not sure what to make of the tree and the wind/water-thing, but perhaps the sun and the moon are connected to Hoshido and Nohr somehow? It would make sense, seeing how a 'white night' (the literal translation of 白夜, the Japanese name for Hoshido) is illuminated by the sun, whereas the moon (and stars) is more of a 'dark night' (= 暗夜, the Japanese name for Nohr) kind of thing. Of course I'm just speculating here, and the devs might have just picked these names for the two countries because they wanted something a little less uninspired than 'white kingdom' and 'black kingdom'. But I'm inclined to think this whole 'dark night' and 'white night' business actually has some sort of relevance to the lore of If's world, seeing how there are quite a few references to night and celestial bodies in the stuff we've been shown so far. (Not to mention the new background of the main image on the official website, which now actually looks somewhat like a white night on the Hoshido side and a starry polar night on the Nohr side, with a glimpse of daylight over the horizon.) As far as the spiral in the middle of the icon is concerned, whatever it represents, I think it might have something to do with Kamui and her/his sword. The game's upper screen logo shows the complete icon with the spiral and the 4 smaller symbols around it engraved in what seems to be a fissured stone floor, with the sword planted right in the middle of that. (On a side note, it looks like the sword and the symbols are part of the same rubble-filled landscape shown on the cover art/website art. The backdrop to the upper screen logo, however, is a rather ordinary 'neutral' night sky that looks like neither the sky on the Nohr side cover art nor the sky on the Hoshido side cover art. I wonder if the icon will change after choosing a side.)

Greetings, people of the Forest! My name is Icy Toast, although I haven't actually used that name in a pretty long time. I've been a fan of FE ever since I first fell in love with the series in the GBA era, but I don't think I've ever been as hyped about a new game in the series as I am about FE If right now. And with the pre-load already sitting safely on my 3DS home screen, what better way to spend the remaining time until the game's release than to sign up here and talk about it with fellow Emblemers? I doubt anyone will remember me, but some seven or eight years ago I was a somewhat active poster on a couple of Fire Emblem boards, like Fire Emblem World and Fire Emblem Anthology, where I dabbled in ROM modding for a bit. (Any other former members of those places here, by any chance?) I think I may have had an (inactive) account on Serenes Forest as well, but I honestly don't remember it too well. If I did, I hope the mods will forgive me for making a new one! So anyway, nice to meet you all! I may not become a very active member here, but you'll probably see me posting in If threads every once in a while!