Anfaidora

Sachiko Wada would be my choice hands down for returning artists, outside of Kozaki. Their previous work on Sacred Stones was wonderful and current work for Cipher is splendid. They do a fantastic job at keeping characters recognizable, even with a newer style and flair. Hidari 's art looks promising, but I don't think it would be a good launching pad for the Switch and FE coming back to console. It has that more 'dated' feel after being exposed to Kozaki's designs, it's art I would have expected 10 years ago for an FE game. It's soft hues and strokes are lovely, they just don't grab a hold of me yet for a war game. Once I see more character art though I'm sure I'll start noticing more details to their art style I enjoy.

Saizo has to be my favorite, but Kaze and Xander had to duke it out in my first conquest play-through. After finding out Kaze, Xander, and Shura share the same voice actor I decided to use one of them in each of my runs, my second Rev run will be Saizo, all the way. Give me the red ninja loooooooooooove. Gotta say I love Hinata getting some kudos though, he is precious.

Hinata's expression is the best!

I always assumed, Story time> 1-2 months go by omg missed period, Deeprealm > until birth and no longer breast feeding, Story time > It's been like two weeks, but kid is now 1 1/2-2 years old. Even without the above I don't understand why people think each campaign was done in a few weeks (Haven't played Rev yet.). Other then some warping shenanigans on rare occasions it is likely moving the whole army from one place to the next took weeks between chapters when they obviously moved locations. Every time anyone has been on a sea voyage it would have most likely taken at least a week, but up to a month depending on weather conditions. For me it feels like the whole war took place over a year or two, least in CQ and BR. Which makes even more sense in my mind since any time they went to My Castle, and returned, they were in the exact same spot they were in when they returned to base. They didn't, and couldn't use the Astral Planes to warp around story time. On top of this, My Castle time seems to be slower then story time. If we assume one battle, story-wise, took most of the day when you return to my castle it is more then likely you have only progressed through one of the four time phases, morning, afternoon, evening and night.

While IS didn't look back in great depth I still believe they took a fair amount of time due to some of the game mechanics being changed. Expanding the weapons triangle, infinite weapons, weapon status, pre-promtes being more usable and customize-able, A+ supports, Class seals, are all things you could say they looked prior to Awakening. The last time I recall having this much choice or control over classes was in Sacred Stones, I started having Amelia flashbacks when we were getting info about the game. As for the things they learned from Awakening, tweaking pair up for the player and giving it to the enemy was fantastic. I still think there could be some tweaking since I had a Valouria/Sophie Berserker /Great Knight combo that couldn't die and didn't need healing when in guard stance. Making the avater the real main character was... better, but I never really understood why I was the tactician when the older brothers and sisters had far more experience leading troops and war strategy. The avatars ability to choose a talent was another good change that allowed for better immersion, while personal skills seem to grant more character bias and takes away from the overall Class seals sadly. Skinship was another interesting way to give the player, as far as models and personal flair goes, more immersion and connections to the cast that made Awakening's confessions popular. It did however come with the fanservice feel that effects the children which is regrettable. Sequel games are far better ways to keep parents alive (or not) and allow for child units then dimensional slight of hand that puts into question far to many morals. Having Elise be a mother after the war would have made far more sense age-wise (Although I do believe her to be older then most people do, out of the "child" characters anyway) A mixture of objectives and no touchy for skinship could have made it a nice feature instead of 'pure' fan service, while realistic passages of time through sequels or even DLC could do the same for children. It could even be a plus storywise with a time of peace, a prolonged war, or even the parents not being able to succeed, a smaller cast to make up for aging the parents and having true story driven children could be a huge boon in the future.

Part of the reason the story suffered is because they decided to cast a wide net, this net saved the franchise in Awakening. There was no guarantee Fates would be a success just because Awakening was, this was a test to see where their audience really was. Conquests maps were refreshing and amazing for a fan who played Blazing Sword and saw those three storylines, the only thing I wish they'ed done was add secret items and chapters like in Blazing Sword. Birthright was Awakening light with dragon veins that gave people more time to love the individual characters and classes, rather then the strategy in Conquest. I've yet to play Revelation but based on hearsay it sounds to be a way to round out the story and give people the time to meet the whole cast. On top of this testing for levels of players tolerance for strategy they brought in phoenix mode and spent time and money marketing which game was better for beginners. Then of course we have extra bonding/skinship and my castle. Fates, similar to Awakening was another "test", 'Let's throw in everything we as fans have ever wanted with the knowledge we took from Awakening and the last 25 years." The story suffered, it's passable, even enjoyable and as far as the game goes a success. I'd be very surprised if the next game has such a large scope and diverging paths, which will most likely cause the story to be better, IS will have a better idea where they stand instead of casting wide nets to catch as many fans as possible. The next game I'm willing to bet will be Conquest maps with phoenix mode returning, and smaller scale mycastle, skinship. Children might even make an appearance through DLC only or a sequel game. As for DLC and cash grab I agree with OP that this never flet like a cashgrab to me the way pokemon did as a child. I didn't have people to trade with back then and I had to have both games, I never once "had" to have all of Fates. Besides, spending 80$ didn't bother me because I'm used to paying that every two years + 15$ a month in subscription for Warcraft. Plus I knew I'd get more then 300 hours of gameplay out of Fates personally and lots of replay value like I have for all FE games.

This is amazing! I'm looking forward to crafting my revelation playthrough with this, now to just finish Nohr and Hoshido.

Does anyone know if the Sibling cut scenes were taken out? Such as the one where Elise grabs your hand and runs you into Camilla? I'm on Chapter 13 in conquest and I feel like the time that would have happened is over? Or is that only in the third path?

Got the day off and I'll be waiting in my living room for ups/amazon to deliver all day. After work is finished for the week I'll be grocery shopping, cooking, and accomplishing all my other tasks so I can have three days of bliss with Jakob and Zander. My family knows I won't be leaving my room for a few days.

Thanks for the response, although I like the freebies I thought you could also get those through the DLC themselves? Not just because you bought 2-3 paths.

So I pre-ordered both versions in their cartridge forms and I am wondering if I'll have to buy the DLC's for the third path and the Map Pack Twice? I didn't mind throwing more money to have two separate games for extra save files, but I'm not really willing to buy the DLC's twice.

For now I'll keep a healthy amount of skepticism if this is true or not. When we first started seeing some of the more lewd things I accepted the fact that those were the most likely to be heavily changed or censored, especially with any child-like characters, such as the younger sisters. Especially since we've had people say suggestive things in many of the other games, even if they aren't quite as provocative as in this case. I'll be very pretty upset if it is taken out, but I am coming from a mid-twenty something's stand point without children. When I think about amie from this standpoint I get where the scale tips to having it removed, even if I think my fellow american's are to socially afraid of anything sex related. There is a healthy middle ground to keeping children safe from not having a childhood and having a chance to grow without being inundated. My hope is that it stays, wording is changed, but your spouse still has some special wording, or that we get a feature to replace it. If we get nothing, or a rehashed barracks without the models I'll be really disappointed. It won't stop me from buying the game, but it will have me dumping money into Japanese classes and more imported products in the future (As if artbooks don't already steal most of my funds in this way already.)

Exactly, Azura is so lovely in her dances and it really pulls you in that she is an interesting character, both visually and story wise. Another character that *bothers me is Flannel's transformed model, when he throws back his head and "screams' it looks like his mouth is closed. Been trying to find a clear shot of it, but can't find it now.