Cysx

The time traveling stuff will only be used for turnwheel shenanigans. ... as well as rewinding to play each of the three school arcs back to back(in the order of our choice) before the grand finale where everyone joins up. The cutting point probably being when all three of the main protagonists are about to fight one another to the death. That's my probably incorrect hot take of the day. N-no it's not inspired by Shining Force III I don't know what you're talking about. That might be a dumb thing to ask, but does Fire Emblem have an history of using names in ways that accurately reflect on the source material?

At the very least since this is art of Garreg Mach monastery, the chances of us actually visiting those places seem pretty high. Will they look as good, yeah, probably not, though what we've seen of the monastery is easily the best looking part of the game, so maybe it won't be that bad either.

^ Frankly, it sounds pretty good to me, no excuses needed. I admittedly did not expect it to be a map theme when we heard it in the trailer, but the extension works way better in that regard. In other news, I have no idea what they're doing with Garreg Mach monastery. There are inconsistencies between all of the artwork pieces we got, somehow.

Yaaay new stuff! The box art looks... cheap, somehow. I like the idea, but it doesn't seem to work in practice. The special edition is much better, though.

They definitely look inspired from regular classes at the very least, and the same as the generic bandits Bernadetta and Petra face. Though I brought up Advance Wars because countries didn't get different classes of units, just slight visual distinctions on most of them. One country's infantry could be wearing a jacket and the other a coat, for example. But both were still the exact same unit when it came to gameplay. I wondered about fighters as well, it's really surprising that they'd replace it with brigand in a context where the latter's naming fits so poorly. So yes, maybe it's that.

Call me crazy, but the left one doesn't look like she has pigtails at all, and her dress seems shorter. There's also the matter of the sword, though it could be hidden from view. As for the classroom, there's no denying that it's very possible, but I don't know, most of what we've seen when it comes to the monastery seems pretty detail-heavy and very deliberate in its size and placement. It just seems a bit weird that they'd reuse classrooms in that context, especially since they'll play a pretty big part in the gameplay. Though there's also the possibility of them simply not being finalized yet.

Yeah, I'm seeing an axe too. Though about the visual differences, it bears mentioning that since Petra is accompanied by "Empire Infantry" as a member of the black eagles, there's a pretty decent chance that each house will get their own soldiers, Advance Wars style, and Caspar's and Claude's would consequently not look the same. Or maybe that's just a cgi thing. And well, perhaps Edelgard gets a non-generic brigand garb since it looks like a pretty natural class choice for her and she's a main character.

Pretty positive that's a man, frankly. And to be fair, we don't really know for sure what's the gender of that Golden Deer student with the glasses, so that 4/4 might not be a thing. You're very right about the blue thighs, I wonder if that's actually a Blue Lions thing or just a coincidence... Outside of that, Byleth does indeed hide this specific angle in the english version(also I think you can spot her boot beneath his chin?), and she'd be the only student to disappear from one trailer to the other, so I'm willing to say she's still there. As for what this means, I'm not too sure, I'm even wondering if all those classrooms are actually different places at this point; I can take them looking similar, but everything matches, it's a bit much. It also looks like a decently big building(it's wide and the roof seems to reach quite high), and I'm wondering if there'll be room for three of those. As for that other girl, they do look similar, but her hair is considerably shorter and their outfits are slightly different, so I don't think they're one and the same.

Is everyone evil? Really nice catch, though, so nice it feels like you potentially just spoiled a plot twist:o

Potentially sequel bait, because our main map is intricate enough as is. Unless they just named locations at random in response to the world building complaints after Fates, which, let's hope it's not that.

I had to rebuy the game after it got scratches out of still being in my Wii as I transported it. For me it was Micaiah's 3rd tier promo that crashed the game(making the thing impossible to complete), and a couple combat animations as well, though I no longer remember which. Everything else worked fine, though. So yes, scratches are the first thing that comes to mind here.

Absolutely, but none of them except perhaps Ephraim are also the army's strategist. Those two properties together are pretty specific to Roy.

Let's say it's meant as acknowledgement of his strategist mind, but also of the fact that he never really got to command shapeshifters in combat, since you don't get any in FE6(Fa aside). The harm is obviously done because memes, but at least there's a reasonable explanation that has nothing to do with racism.

I like the field trip idea, but yes, it's not boding too well for our grand quest around the world, with the academy being right in its center and this pretty specific system being highlighted. And frankly the more I look at the academy, the more it seems way too intricate for us to ever leave it. I don't think IS has ever put a tenth of that effort into any singular environment before, not when it comes to FE anyway.

Nice! Guess that warrants finally adding that man to the list. As expected, that blonde girl has really good art. Join the blues everyone, you know you want to!

That's true. I just make the distinction because it's not just Edelgard; outside of these three, everyone is paper white, and almost the exact same shade at that.

Not necessarily(or I don't think so at least), but considering we have one darker skinned student per house currently(Petra, big axe guy, and Claude), as well as a bunch of normal skinned students within the Golden Deer, I don't know that we can establish it's something from Leicester at this point.

I mean that went for what was said above as well, and in both cases that could most likely be justified by a wish to keep things relatively short, but alright, let's make lists(also sorry I'm late): >Even if Alm put two and two together to figure out his true identity, killing Rudolf and Berkut would be unavoidable unless Alm backed out of the war, which by that point would be very out of character. And not listening to Mycen and Celica? Mycen intentionally kept Alm in the dark and Celica didn't know Alm was Rudolf's son. While true that their deaths were difficult to avoid(well, their defeat at least, deaths is considerably more debatable), the fact remains that these are things that Alm did not want, but couldn't avoid. Things did not go his way. As for Mycen and Celica, I was referring to not going to war in the first place. >And then he marches up to her front door, kills her and saves Tatiana which in turn allows Camus to join up with them. A pretty positive outcome. The point being that Alm isn't that smart and doesn't always have the best judgement. I think a major theme with him is that things work out for him, but apparently some say it's because he's almost flawless, while really, he just gets lucky a lot of the time. Which isn't much better but is more a storytelling problem than a problem with Alm, arguably. Most importantly, there's a big difference between getting lucky and rightfully prevailing in every situation. >This is a well written bit of dialogue if it does happen but as it only happens when the player plays very badly, it can't be considered a canon outcome. Were that so, you could consider Alm letting all of his friends die in the war (it can happen if you let it) when judging his flaws as a character. I won't get into gameplay and story segregation because me just mentioning it is sufficient, but I do think it says a lot that the writers went through the trouble of putting that very specific scene in the game, and that it matters when debating whether or not Alm's character was meant to make the player feel good about themselves. And admittedly it is pretty tough to get Mathilda killed, but we have no way to determine if the writers knew that in advance. >Their miscommunication is entirely the fault of Celica who hides all of the relevant information that would resolve their conflict I'd say she is more to blame for sure, even though her reasons are acceptable. The fact remains that Alm fails at understanding her plight completely, which reflects upon his ability to figure things out poorly. Celica, on the other hand, has a pretty solid grasp on the situation. This is a tangent but, out of the two, Celica's plan is the better one with the information they have available, and Alm just gets lucky(or rather, doesn't really have a plan), outside the, you know, killing off his family business. >This is technically correct but I don't know what it says about Alm. More than if he didn't need Milla. It shows him being limited. >Thanks to Mycen and Celica. And yet Alm knows enough to do everything that is required to be the hero. Okay, so to an extent it is true that the game makes a lot of efforts to present Alm's mistakes as not his fault. That is absolutely a fair thing to say imo. At the same time, you can't deny that he knows nothing when he indeed knows nothing. He just goes in and hopes for the best. The fact that it's enough to "be the hero" is, again, a storytelling problem, and not a positive about Alm. If being the hero is easy, then Alm's pedestal is that much lower. > This is only true for some protagonists. Roy fits a similar pattern of always making the correct decisions despite Merlinus cautioning against his actions, but most lords are not praised to the extent Alm is. Alm gets talked about being Zofia's future king long before anyone even knows he's royalty and Tobin's conclusion is that Alm is just naturally better than him and everyone in Ram village because of some innate quality. Clive's big character moment was realizing that Alm is wiser and more competent than he is. All of this is backed up by Alm never making mistakes that could be attributed to his own flaws. Marth is essentially admired by everyone and gets his fair share of praising in the remakes, girls in the army are randomly in love with him, he's well respected, etc. Sigurd is praised by Edin, Azelle, Eldigan, Cuan, his retainers of course, Ira... I think there's Jamka as well, likely Claude, it's love at first sight with Dierdre, etc. Seliph is praised by Lewyn, Leif, Ced, Altenna, Shanam, and that's with him being one of the most passive lords out there. Leif gets praised but also regularly criticized, so I find he strikes a decent balance. Roy is pretty passive too, he gets his moments earlygame but after that, I wouldn't say it's so bad with him either. The FE7 trio tends to share the spotlight so they get a bit each but at the end of the day yeah they're not too bad Ephraim is Ephraim, Eirika doesn't get much from what I recall Ike, even as early as FE9, gets the respect of many important people very quickly, and ends up as one of the most praised lords of all with FE10 added into the mix. Robin and Corrin I don't really think I need to say much about. They're super special and the game likes to regularly remind you of that. Despite this, there's still room for Chrom to be admired as an incredible warrior by many in his troop, and he gets his own Catria just because. I think Alm's main problem is as I said, Clive. But something I don't see being brought up a lot is that Clive seems constantly on the verge of depression, which makes his praise feel considerably easier to earn. Most importantly, he's using his praising of Alm as an excuse to put himself down most of the time, that is pretty much Clive's character in a nutshell. This matters a lot. It gives legitimate reason to think that many people could have been Clive's Alm, or at least get close. I addressed Tobin already, and that's also an example of him praising Alm because of his own insecurities. Also I think that last sentence is a bit gratuitously dismissive of everything I've said, but so be it. > Even if you think Celica's actions fit her character or think her journey had some merits, Alm is a much more relatable character. Alm is brave, honest and direct where Celica is emotional, dishonest and stubborn. Alm is dealing with an immediate and visible problem where Celica handwaves it because she doesn't want to deal with it personally. Alm explains his reasoning to Celica and offers to stand down if someone more qualified can take his place and Celica screams unfounded accusations and storms off without explaining herself. Alm's journey from the start is always making the moral and correct choice but starting from part 4, all of Celica's actions are misguided, lead her party and herself into peril and ultimately she admits everything she believed in was wrong. I can't see their characters as being even remotely even. Her being wrong or right has nothing to do with my argument, it's about how important she is and how much the player has to deal with her, which is a lot. Alm being more relatable(which I can agree with) doesn't change the fact that he's sharing the spotlight with someone. If anything, the fact that Celica is not meant to be relatable for the player is a pretty decent sign that that isn't what the writers were going for with this game when her place in the story/gameplay is as large as it is. To address what you said more specifically, I wouldn't say she's dishonest, and both Alm and herself are stubborn(as well as honest). Celica handwaves her royal obligations but not the problem itself, as she truly believes that getting Milla's help is the better solution, and again, it kinda is on paper, at least temporarily, as it would avoid a lot of bloodshed. Her main issue is that she also has the selfish goal of protecting Alm in particular. As far as that interaction goes, well she tries to talk him out of the war because she's seen him die, goes a bit too far, he unwillingly hits a nerve and she leaves; that's pretty much the gist of it. That's not on Alm, but at the same time it's easy to understand why hearing him criticize her father would hurt her. I frankly don't think that scene is nearly as imbalanced as people say, the only thing that's lacking is showing that it's a touchy subject for Celica at some point beforehand, but, come on everyone, that's not hard to figure out. As for part 4, that's the big Celica downfall for sure. At first she makes the wrong choices for decent reasons, but then she just acts straight up stupid. It's not nearly as clear cut as you're presenting it to be in the end though, as Milla does save the day and this really was about gods from the start. But, the story does conclude on an Alm note. That's why I said it was 55/45 and not 50/50 between the two, which also fits for gameplay because of part 5. Even if we argue semantics here, the result would be way more than enough for my point to stand; Alm shares a lot of the spotlight with Celica. There are two legitimate main characters in Echoes, not just one. That's not needlessly long at all, go me

Well, just the usual stuff. That the balancing will be bad, or the writing, about loads of dlc, potential controversy, etc. At least I'm not worried it'll be delayed anymore. That's something. Oh and unique to this game(or at least, something that hasn't been a problem for a while) is that the visuals might just not be up to par, but frankly, I'm over it by this point. I just care because it might affect sales negatively.

We got an issue yesterday, but I don't think the game got any coverage. Considering they'll need to go over what we already know, we have a good two issues of no extreme significance ahead of us, most likely, and who knows when they'll be happening. Solid chance March isn't going to be too eventful for us.

You did not come off as rude to me, but passionate, which I can definitely respect. And frankly, I'm in agreement with pretty much everything you just said; the one nitpick I'd have being that while I agree that a well-written human element is a massive asset to a story, I wouldn't go so far as to say that you cannot have a good story without it, which is potentially not even something you meant to imply in the first place. And even if it was, eh, agree to disagree as far as I'm concerned. Sorry again for that oversimplification.

Apologies, that statement was not meant to stand on its own. I agree that you have to give your audience someone they can relate to on some level, that is indeed a pretty fundamental concept. At the same time, there are things that are normal for regular human beings that people do not want to see too much of in fiction. I think it's a balance to strike, and as such my actual sentence should have been that extremely normal people don't make good protagonists; if we disagree on this as well, then I'm sorry. I indeed do not believe I'd make a good hero myself, and neither would the few people I feel I know well enough to pass this judgement on a superficial level. To semi-quote a comic I read some time ago, the way we portray ourselves in fiction is inherently unrealistic.

I was speaking in terms of gameplay and place in the story. SoV is like, 55% Alm and 45% Celica. As far as what they accomplish, Celica liberates entire regions of the continent the moment she's out of her monastery, and unlike Alm, who, past his decision of leaving the village, is constantly forced into the war because someone has to do it, Celica personally decides to delay her journey to be a good guy with no deliverance behind her. Alm accomplishes more in the end but he quickly gets to lead an army; considering Celica's troop is literally only the people you play as, what she does is arguably much more impressive. Fair enough about the personal swords, though. I don't even want to get into specifics, but I really can't relate to most of what you're saying here. Alm unwillingly kills the two last family members he has because of his lack of foresight and not listening to Mycen/Celica, gets tricked by Nuibaba, gets heavily criticized by Clive if Mathilda dies in her cell(which is relevant because that's not a thing for Celica if she fails to recruit someone, not even Valbar, who has Leon blaming everyone for it, not Celica specifically), fails at understanding Celica, ultimately only saves her because Milla intervenes, and is throughout the entire game completely oblivious to what's actually going on behind the scenes. Him being praised is something that happens to nigh every FE protagonist, and so is being able to do things the rest of the supporting cast cannot. It's a bit silly to say, but run off the mill guys tend not to make the most interesting heroes out there. He's not praised constantly, there is one scene where Tobin and Gray converse about it, and the fact is, he's been leading an army for a while by then, it's pretty logical that they'd feel inferior. And while Clive exists, the character of Saber is largely about putting Celica on a pedestal too, and so is Mae's quite frankly. It's funny you say that Celica's tale doesn't matter, because at the heart of things, SoV is a story of two dragon gods degenerating, and Alm's side barely touches on that until the reunion. Celica has a lot of filler for sure, but what she gets beyond it is considerably more meaningful, while Alm is unwillingly leading a war against a ruler that is actively trying to lose. Yes I'm simplifying but, that's still very much a thing. As far as villains go, I'd say Desaix matters more than Grieth for sure, but Berkut and Rudolf vs Jedah and Duma is a considerably tougher call. And while I can agree that Alm's story stands on its own better, considering it'd be much worse as a result, I'm not sure how much value that really has. -- Outside of those technicalities, the fact remains that the basis for Alm's character was most likely not player worship, while that absolutely is a big aspect of Corrin. Alm was created at a time where it was not really a thing in videogame storytelling, and while his character saw some evolution, his tale and actions are faithful from my understanding.

I largely agree with everything else you said, but Alm is a character from a NES game which features two protagonists of roughly equal importance; he does not compare with a straight up playable avatar, personnalization or not.

I was thinking of Ashe and axe guy myself. Precisely because their hair color is the same(also they're seen together behind Mercedes and Annette), but then their skin colour isn't... which is a problem.