VincentASM

I know it shouldn't be surprising, but I laughed when I saw Mycen and Nomah's numbers. I'm quite surprised that Alm (and Celica) is a lot above average, but I guess it makes sense since those two are main characters and can't quickly promote to gain stats.

That was a pretty, er, interesting balancing choice. I seem to recall people speculating that magic spells put on a mental "weight" on the user, which their physical body cannot counteract. Otherwise, I doubt there's a real reason, unless it's hidden in a village or house conversation etc. (Unrelated, but I'm suddenly reminded of magic dealing reduced damage in the prototype version of Blazing Blade. That was definitely not fun...)

Sorry, I dunno if it's possible. However I did test something for you. What you can do is create a 112 x 112 px image and paste your (smaller) image into the middle. Then when you upload the image, drag both of the corners until they fit the box, like in the image below: If you did it right, you should get a 1:1 avatar. Do you mean a whole skin/theme? Making a new theme is a bit really time-consuming ^^;;; Last time I made a new theme was the pink Sakura's Forest theme for the previous year's April Fools. I think it took several hours of creating and testing. That's one of the reasons I kept it after April Fools--because it took so much effort to make, ahaha. Still, I'll think about it.

This is perhaps long overdue, but I added some backgrounds to the forum banner at the top of each page. This applies to the Serenes Forest (Default), Night Forest and Blue Skies themes. Maybe I'll add some characters to the banners later as well. (My current experiments aren't going very well.) In addition, I've tried to increase the avatar/profile picture size in the topic view. Before it was 90 x 90 px or something silly. Now it's 112 x 112, which I feel is the right balance. If you've noticed that your avatar looks stretched or blurry, I recommend uploading a higher resolution image (generally anything that's 200 pixels or higher). Also, if you're uploading a ~112 pixel image, keep in mind that the forum software automatically crops the image for you (although you can undo this in the image cropping screen). Anyway, if you notice any oddities, please let me know. Comments and feedback are welcome too!

Hmm, yeah, I don't think it's possible without extreme fiddling. In New Mystery, if you copy the 04 28 bytes from the star shards and the Starsphere, you can add your own stat boosts to weapons.

I don't have time to look in depth, but it's possible that this behaviour doesn't exist in Shadow Dragon. It might be possible in New Mystery because of the Star shards though. Anyway, I'll see if I can find an answer when I have more time.

While Finn seems a bit plain, I don't really think he was treated unfairly. Rather, it might be Reinhardt and Olwen that were given special treatment. My hope for the future is that all Brave weapons (such as Finn's) can be refined to their Master versions, although I have a feeling that might really mess with the game balance XD

Personally, I'm not really familiar with how discussions on the Zelda timeline used to be, so I can't really compare, haha. Although, in terms of Zelda, I feel like there are more games and more obvious threads (like some games are obviously sequels or prequels) compared to FE, so I can imagine the appeal of linking all the Zelda games together. I don't think FE has gotten anywhere near that yet. Plus the existence of the Outrealms potentially makes things really complicated... or really simple, depending on your perspective. I do not-so-secretly wish the developers would reveal more details about the greater FE world, but I can wait patiently. Although they really do need to tell us the name of Fates's continent at least.

Oh, I didn't realise it was divided into multiple Outrealms. But that makes sense, since it reduces the chances of a really lopsided battle. Anyway, I'm enjoying the battles so far. Infernal is a pain in a butt, but Lunatic is the right level of challenge for me and gives a reasonable amount of points too. Rewards seem kinda eh, but can't complain at 12 or so free Orbs. Also, if anybody needs an extra friend unit, I have ~50 spaces free in my Friend List. ID is 9447281487. My unit will be Kitty Sakura (anti-mage) unless you'd prefer a more flexible unit. EDIT: I also love how you can spend multiple stamina to boost your score without playing the same maps multiple times.

Confusingly, Naga in Awakening establishes that dragons aren't gods. Just really powerful beings. However, the series's general theme is that dragons are essentially gods. This is emphasised by the existence of Divine Dragons (literally God Dragons) and First Dragons (aka Divine/God Ancestral Dragons). Still, if we go by the definition of gods being creators, then only Ashunera fits that bill to our knowledge (since she created basic life in Tellius).

My long-running conspiracy theory is that the developers love to introduce origin stories that aren't always immediately obvious. (Although Echoes is really blatant with Grima's origin story.) Part of this theory is that The Sacred Stones may have introduced Fomortiis as a possible explanation for monsters/Terrors in Valentia. While we don't know much about Fomortiis or his legion of monsters, we do know they've been around for a very long time (at least a millennium, give or take) and were such a huge threat that the dragonkin of Magvel had to step in. Also, perhaps there's some connection there to Valentia's Falchion being strong against Terrors (similar to the Sacred Twins)? The bit about Balor being possibly connected to an ancient demon god intrigues me as well. I wonder what kind of monsters existed in the ancient past?

Necrodragons being Wyverns makes a lot of sense, considering their similar appearance and humongous movement. I'm not convinced White Dragons are that special though. The game just calls them stronger Necrodragons and clearly states they're undead. Also, I'm a bit disappointed that the descriptions for the Terrors didn't really reveal much. I wanted to know where the Titans came from, since they're apparently a race of giants that used to live on Valentia. Likewise, the Vesta and Fafnir apparently existed long, long ago. Meanwhile the Balor was said to be an ancient demon god's eye.

@Jotari Your main question is answered near the end of the timeline. The prophecy in Echoes is different to the one in Gaiden--and it involves a pair of Brand-bearers being born around the same time. When Rudolf was born, presumably a person with Mila's Brand didn't yet exist. Besides, we know from the Book of Valentian Revelations in the game that divine dragon blood is required to wield Falchion. It's not a stretch to assume that major blood/a Brand is required. Also, Duma wanted to be killed, like (Fates spoiler)...

So I was speaking to @Kirie and I learned that the latest Cipher mascot, Nieve, comes from a world filled with "Boundless Chaos". This led me to think... As you may know, Series 14 is currently a mystery, where the only clue is the Japanese word for "Infinity" or "Boundless". I think some people are wondering if there's a connection to the upcoming Switch FE game, but I'm curious if the answer is actually a bit closer to home. The keyword we were given is the same word used in "Boundless Chaos". Plus it seems a bit strange that they suddenly revealed a character related to the Boundless Chaos. So I'm thinking Series 14 might be related to the Boundless Chaos instead. But what exactly is this Boundless Chaos? It is mentioned by Randal in his base conversation in Echoes, though he doesn't say anything about it. The Cipher mascots also refer to it at least once in the Cipher Frontier section. The answer (as the mascots helpfully point out) can actually be found in the starter deck rule books. Here's what it says: The Boundless Chaos birthed the "Cipher World". Its power returned everything to nothing, making everything into a dream. It started to eat into other worlds, expanding the "Cipher World". At that time... Heroes from countless worlds and countless eras were summoned to this realm via Outrealm Gates. To stop the Boundless Chaos from running rampart... And to discover the truth of the world... The heroes' battle begins. Basically, the Boundless Chaos is some kind of power that led to the creation of the world of Cipher--and it's implied to be the source of all the Outrealm shenanigans, like Heroes appearing from other worlds or even generations. Back to Series 14, this is just my speculation, I am wondering if there will be a focus on "what if" characters like Hero Wrys, berserk Ike and Risen King Chrom. I think this would be really cool from a fan's perspective, although I dunno if it would work well from marketing standpoint.

I hope they planned in advance. Those characters are already in the Cipher card game, so the only issue would be the voice work.

Fire: This was the trickiest, since my Fire Heroes are a weird bunch. I think my winning team was Fallen Celica, Valentine Hector, Olivia and Young Tiki. Hector did most of the heavy lifting, while the other three danced around and tanked hits. Water: I went in with Refined Caeda, New Year Azura, Refined Felicia and Fjorm. This time, Caeda did most of the work, while Felicia took on the mages or helped with chip damage. I almost screwed up the positioning on my final turn, but I forgot Azura had the Guidance seal. Phew. Wind: This was Marisa, New Year Azura (after changing her blessing), Nino and Brave Lyn. Nino swept most of the map, while Brave Lyn helped KO the mages. Earth: Finally, I had Legendary Ike, Legendary Robin, Bride Cordelia and Elincia. Cordelia and Elincia were the heavy hitters, while Ike and Robin tanked or used their repositioning skills. Overall, I was dreading the quests, but it wasn't so bad since you can mix and match units more freely.

The names are unedited, yeah. It shouldn't be surprising that they used the localised names because Nintendo Japan and Nintendo of America are the same company. But Randal having his Japanese name is probably an oversight, since he and the other Cipher characters are DLC. I remember there being a similar case with Fates. Some of the Japanese comics/novels refer to it as Fire Emblem Fates, even though it's Fire Emblem if in Japan. I'm assuming very few Japanese people bother to read the English, so they just pick from whatever list they feel like (in this case, the list of localised names).

The main reason we knew about Legendary Robin was because of the arena rotation. I assume the arena rotation featuring the next Legendary Hero isn't in the datamines (but instead the Thracia one is). Anyway, I didn't really expect this, but I guess some people thought colourless wasn't really that good? Personally, I agree about it being a good offensive type though. Plus I don't want my days of throwing Bride Cordelia and 3 dancers at everything to end XD

Fair point, I don't think I checked. I originally played Echoes in Chinese, where I don't remember many differences with the English version. Anyway, I dug it up for ya. Sorry, it's actually Tatiana's ending. From what I can tell, it is pretty much the same as the English version. As such, I would be tempted to keep it in line with that. I also kinda like the idea of him going over to Archanea every now and then, to check on the progress XD

About Zeke, I took a slight liberty to better match with his English ending. However, I may have read "parted at times" a bit too literally?

Possibly, but the note in the timeline explicitly mentions the standard spell and that Celica and Delthea can use it. I figured Ragnarok Omega was just Celica drawing from her true strength, much like when Alm uses Scendscale.

By the way, I don't think the Demon's Ingle was explicitly mentioned as a resting spot (and the Mila Tree to some degree), so it *might* not be a retcon. In the Japanese version, it is literally called "Duma's Entrails", which is a bit more vague. At the time, it made more sense to simplify it as "Duma's Remains". I'm also not convinced that the localisation team chose to rename the location because of any secret knowledge. Historically (and after Awakening), the localisation team has clashed with the Japanese versions at times (the most famous being Naga's gender). Most likely they would've changed the Mila Tree too, but Mila is actually referenced in game, so they kept it. EDIT The new info about the Falchion (that I've yet to verify) implies Ragnarok isn't blood-locked.

I know which artwork you're talking about. I was actually looking for it last night, but I couldn't find it in my dozens of DVD backups. Now that you mentioned it, I did find a picture online, but it was a pretty blurry one. Anyway, the artwork is from a novel that might not necessarily be canon. Still, I would not be surprised if it was based on some developer notes. Since we now know Naga was definitely female. (Ignoring the localisation that suggests she can gender-flip.)

It's been a while since I did this battle, but you can try using Invoke to lure/distract the enemies.

Fair enough, we've never canonically seen Naga before she died, so we don't know what she looked like before. Still, for some reason, I can just imagine Naga having the same body before and after. Plus, if it is a new body, that poses the question of how it was made or where it came from. That said, if the dragonkin have knowledge of--and ways to travel to--parallel worlds, I wouldn't be surprised if they had some pretty crazy technology. Anyway, moving back to Valentia for a bit... Reading Japanese message boards, there seems to a pretty interesting minor revelation about the Falchion, which some people probably guessed. I'm gonna wait for the page to appear before commenting further though. Also, I love how they explained the origins of Thabes and why it's in ruins. Previously, I assumed the people of Thabes somehow brought destruction upon themselves, which I'm sure is a common trope for advanced civilisations. In reality, that was partly true. It was Duma that destroyed it, because he believed it posed a threat to dragons (and maybe other humans).