Medeus

The only thing that really interests me about Rearmed Robin is that her weapon looks to be great on Dheginsea, so if I pull her the first thing I'm doing is taking that weapon and slapping it on him.

This was a surprising banner all around, I never would've expected them to do a Duma/Mila duo with the former as a lead as they usually place their strong sellers in that spot. I honestly want Duma because he'd be fun to use alongside Medeus, with Naga being a side project if I can get enough of her.

I'm honestly up for more Dragons this Halloween if only because the Tellius dragons are probably not arriving for a long time without them. I just hope I get Nasir this time around, it's weird that he played a role in the plot of PoR and yet is still MIA.

Only 78 people voted in that poll, and of that 78 only 13 said they'd consider them the best. That's not a good sample size even if you restrict it to the fandom that's on internet sites, and even if you were to limit it to just the scope of this forum that still only means less then 17% of fans on here would consider them better than their peers. Plus, as said before you do show a bias in the original post that could skewer the results as well. They still may very well not be hated, but that poll is not going to prove anything with those factors in play.

Between the mysterious girl and Alear's status, I'm very sure we're getting a Manakete/Dragon shapeshifter in the game. Plus, if they do extend the Emblems to characters outside of those on the mural then Tiki is a high possibility for inclusion. Beast units I hope they're there, but I'm not as sure of when compared to dragons. Considering the game was meant to be a celebratory title I think they'll try to put them in like how Panne was added into Awakening as a homage to Laguz, but at the same time they are easy targets for IS to ignore if they'd prefer other classes.

I think there's a good chance, FByleth is very popular and with examples like the aforementioned Warriors in mind they do try to allow the player to use their preferred avatar of choice, even if they have to be unlocked first. So I think Engage will do the same and have FByleth and MCorrin in there somewhere, even if it means they'll be more on the sidelines relative to their counterparts.

Why is Rhea trying to bring back Sothis? With that refine she's not bringing anyone to salvation. Honestly surprised with BClaude's as I wasn't expecting him to get almost everything the playerbase was asking for him. It almost checks off everything he needed to deal with what was blocking his playstyle from working, which is great because ranged fliers don't get a lot to play around with.

I'll third the notion that I don't think any of the characters are going to lose popularity for their roles in Three Hopes. Even the characters with the most notable discord increase over their roles in the games I don't think it's going to be enough to a point that it moves the needle enough to consider them more hated than before. The only characters I could see a notable change in either direction are those who were given faces and proper roles in the game like the real Monica, Holst, or the parents, and that's only because them being relatively unknown characters in Three Houses meant that they're more at risk to not meeting the expectations of the fanbase after all of the speculation they've had over the past three years.

Odd to get him so quickly, but I'm not complaining as he's one of my favorite designs in recent years. I'll try to get him as I have no problem getting more merges for Medeus and Ashera along the way, though I hope he doesn't break me since CYL is around the corner. Fafnir as well, though at least with him if they won't give him as a Mythic he has a Fallen option in the Dragon form. I'll take it considering they refuse to give Beast units anything new to play with.

I think 2- or 3-year difference is about accurate. She's 13 to start in Book 1 and while Alfonse isn't confirmed I doubt he's any older then 16 as most lords tend to land around that age and Lif shows that he still has a lot of room to grow. So even at the biggest difference between them it's probably not any worse than three years, though I do think them giving her new artwork is because we're probably at a point in the story where she can realistically start looking older.

Agreed, I understand they wanted to focus on the conflict between the three lords, but when you make a character and their organization very central to two of their motivations and leave that character mostly absent that does more harm than good. It's especially the case since Rhea was already pretty absent in non-CF routes in Three Houses after the timeskip, so seeing her more active in the war phase would've been more beneficial both to her and characters related to her.

They do actually touch on that in a couple supports of Claude's. He's seen thanking the earth and the characters he talks to get confused by it, but it's never delved into any deeper so it's just ultimately glossed over. I agree that having that expanded on and making it the point of friction for Claude probably would've gone farther in making his ideals feel stronger and more tangible, which is something his story did need to feel more grounded.

I think I channeled my inner Medeus, because my first thought at seeing Ymir was 'I'm going to get her and throw her on my Dark team'. Other then that, this is a weird banner. It reminds me of Thracia's first banner except worse since we got two alts plus an OC rather than just the alts. Granted, I understand why they did it as Echoes is really low on characters and they set the pattern of the Pegasus sisters with Catria, but it's still a little disappointing to see us only get two proper characters out of this. Oh, and I guess Brigand Boss is here, only good thing about him is that his placement will drop like a rock next CYL.

Golden Wildfire Better: -Hilda: She was already good in TH, but this route gave her a lot more chances to shine. Thanks to Holst being an actual character we get to see their relationship fleshed out (same with Balthus for that matter), due to the story having a more focused narrative she gets more chances to contribute as a retainer, and overall feels more well-rounded as a character. -Lorenz: Similar to Hilda it helps to have an actual face to the family member that plays the biggest part in how their character is, and he gets more opportunities to shine as Claude's left-hand man. -Byleth: I don't really mind the mute angle they were going with in TH, but I do agree that it sometimes hurt their intended character interactions and how it was meant to reflect on them. Here, since they actually speak we get a better feel for who they were before they got emotions, and we actually properly see them as a mercenary and their relationship with Jeralt. Also, playing them as the dreaded demon that the player has to overcome in some way was a nice angle to go since TH establishes them as a powerful force and seeing it on the other end could be pretty unsettling. Mixed: -Claude: I like the fact that we do get to see the shadier side of the character as that was underplayed in the original, and having the darker side of the character shown helps indicate how much he also needed Byleth to help guide him in VW. However, I do think despite his route giving him more focus the motivation behind him is lacking as Rhea is absent for most of the route aside from the last two chapters and his accusations on the isolationism of the Church is never fully delved into in either Three Houses or Three Hopes. -Raphael: The paralogue he gets is better at giving him closure to what happened to his parents and thus, his willingness to not open old wounds and move on becomes stronger as a character trait. However, as said before it's counterbalanced by his one-note personality getting worse, so he only barely improves overall. Worse: -Rhea: She's functionally the main antagonist of the route and somehow still doesn't really exist until you fight her two (four with the secret chapters) chapters from the end. Compared to something like Crimson Flower where we get to follow her sanity slippage far more closely, she feels very lacking as we barely get to understand the clash of ideals they're supposed to have, and even Three Houses doesn't give enough context to help. -Cyril: We do get to see his relationship with Rhea shown off, which makes his affection for her retroactively better, but they screw him over in almost every other way. He's not a playable character and thus gets nothing in terms of supports, and is ultimately just cannon fodder for the team to take down on the way to Rhea. He doesn't even get acknowledged by Claude this time around, not even one line of dialogue. -Alois: There's really little excuse for him not to be a playable character when he gets to be a part of Jeralt's mercenaries and Byleth and Jeralt are playable. It would've been nice to see how working alongside a man he respects so much in a new field affected him.

Aw, Eir looks really cute in this style. I'm glad that she's getting a TT+ story of her own. She didn't get a lot of attention as Lif's storyline took a lot of the focus away, so something just for her will be nice. Definitely seems like it, which would be even funnier considering Hel's English voice actress. I feel we'll at least get the Dragon of Life since that was a major reason Hel stole her away in the first place. From there we may get some details on her family like how we got Fjorm's ancestor from Nifl's memories.

Fair enough, but it doesn't change my issue, particularly since getting rid of the Church is much more of a motivator for Claude in Three Hopes.

I feel the problem with that point is that very few if any of the actual religious practitioners in game, especially in Garreg Mach, actually shun people of different faiths. In fact, Rhea and the Central Church are welcoming as Catherine flat out says Rhea told her she can't shun someone who doesn't believe in the goddess and there's other comments and text that show the same. If the church is an obstacle to people being open minded to other cultures, it's not really reflecting that, if anything it constantly shows the opposite considering Garreg Mach had people of different cultures running around and there's little conflict or issues presented between them and the denomination. Again though, this is geopolitical. Hilda thinks lowly of Almyrians because they constantly invade the Throat, her brother is always fighting them, and they break treaties, so she feels they're a bunch of brutes because that's all she hears about them, and the same is said of other NPCs and characters in both games. Similarly, Ingrid's and the other's issue with the people of Duscar are that they're believed to have been involved in the tragedy, nothing about their religion is stated. Finally, despite you bringing up the different belief systems of those like Petra and Shamir, none of them say they encountered harsh treatment for their beliefs and in fact in Shamir's support with Catherine the latter doesn't force her to abandon her beliefs because of what Rhea says. Religion is never stated to be the issue blocking people of other countries, but rather xenophobia born of their own mindsets along with the circumstances around their contact with them. With the way the story presents the issue of country relations, it's not a problem with the Central Church. Again, none of this plays into Xenophobia or country relations. It is true the church monitors the flow of information and advancement, but those issues are not what prevents Fodlan from getting into contact with other cultures. In fact, considering we never see the church stop any information about countries like Almyra or Sreng from being shared around the monastery or that those countries have any noted technological advancements themselves they likely are not subject to any of the problems presented with this. Additionally, even if it did Claude shouldn't have access to the Abyss library as he's not around long enough in Garrag Mach to learn about them, so we can't rely on Claude reading that book to reach the conclusion. In short, I feel my problem is that Golden Wildfire is trying to place the blame on the Central Church and almost exclusively the Central Church when looking at the situation, it's much more complicated than that. Much of the xenophobia comes from geopolitical issues like the constant invasions, lack of resources, and mutual hatred rather than anything they themselves do. Claude coming to the conclusion he does in GW doesn't seem very supported and is honestly kind of strange considering he himself should be aware of why there's such disdain between Fodlan and Almyra considering he's been on both sides of the Throat and has seen the invasions first hand.

Just finished Golden Wildfire, I have a few thoughts but one thing has stuck in my mind about it:

Definitely going for Claude, he's my favorite of the three and the fact that he's the demote makes him even more appealing as an option to pull. I'm probably not going for the others, but if I don't get Blue on my circles I'll probably go Red to pick up Edelgard. It's the face, the goggles and the wider eyes in particular make him look five years younger.

I'm still at a loss right now, I was looking through the FEH reddit when the news dropped and I couldn't believe it when I first read it. RIP Billy, you were a talented voice actor who gave a great performance in characters like Ferdinand and Blue, and my heart goes out to your friends and family.

I think they should've split the book up. The Embla political plot and Askr/Embla war could've easily have been their own stories, but they crammed them together and that's hurt both plotlines as Ash and Elm did almost nothing in the first half and Letizia's plotline had to be rushed for the Midpoint. The only thing really left for Letizia at this point is to reconcile with Veronica, and that can easily be done in a Chapter considering FEH's usual pace. Probably cow dragon and bat dragon as you said. With Embla in particular we already have Elm as a Bat Beast unit and the generics are coming too who'll be in Red, Blue, and Green varieties. So they may want to differentiate her from both, and making her a dragon with bat-like elements would be a good way to do so.