Slumber

This brings up an issue that's been bothering me since Radiant Dawn and got super exacerbated in Awakening, and it's one I don't haven't really had a good idea on how to address it. Stat inflation has been massive since Radiant Dawn. Before, the series capped most stats around the mid 20s. With Radiant Dawn, they boosted it a bit with the third tiers, and that game had high caps be more around 35-40, and back in the day that seemed nuts. But since Awakening, the caps have gone as high as 50+, though Fates was closer to RD and Echoes went with 40 as the cap and a total variation delta of like, +/-3. The AS formula they've been using for decades doesn't work anymore when stats get that high, especially on units like Hanneman. Units who get fucked in speed are doomed in ways that they didn't used to be. Obviously there used to be units who were low tier because their speed sucked. The GBA games doomed a lot of Axe Fighters because of this. But the problem is just so much worse now. Dorcas getting a lucky speed level up with his 20% speed growth is a much bigger deal in salvaging that character than Hanneman getting 2-3 lucky level ups in speed with his 20% speed growth. By end game, if you want Hanneman to survive any attack from a unit that isn't a goddamn Fortress Knight, you'll have needed him to have gotten waaaaaaaay luckier than Dorcas would have needed to to be end-game viable. Or you'll have to have specced him into Wyvern Lord for that ridiculous base speed. There are way more units in Three Houses whose viability hinge entirely on their speed. Ideally I would want them to go back to 30 being the standard stat cap, but the issue stems from how IS structures the games these days. If you want big, long stories, like IS seems to want these days, you can't put caps that low, without lowering the growth rates, which have also kinda spiraled out of control. But that issue cropped up because it helps the pace of the games. FE games feel a lot slower when characters are barely growing from level to level, so they're been ramping up unit growth rates and level caps. Comparing how character progression feels from OG Gaiden to Echoes encapsulates this pretty well. Alternatively, they could just rework their AS doubling formula to fit with these modern titles, but I have no idea how you do that without making it impossible to double in the early game and thus making the early games feel slow as fuck. The only thing I can think of is doing the Radiant Dawn thing and making you play as several forces who all level independently, but that's an idea that would have to be executed very well, judging from the complaints I've seen about how RD handled it.

In the battle between the three factions after the timeskip, if Edelgard is defeated before Bernadetta, she kills Bernadetta. At least in the BL route, don't know about the GD path.

The people I've talked with have all felt mostly positive towards the demo, with most citing a lot of QoL issues, which were then directly addressed in the trailer they dropped last month. But idk. I also see it in the 7-8 range, maybe low-80s if the extra polish is enough. It is a pretty niche game. I hope it does well in sales, assuming the game turns out well... but it's releasing on the same day as Borderlands 3, which is a pretty big game. Its only saving grace is that I doubt there's much overlap with DXM's target audience and BL3's. And yeah, Platinum's cemented itself as a developer in the last few years, so I think AC will do fine.

My love of free time is the reason I decided to not go to med school, despite having an amazing degree to go into med school with. Also I'm lazy and don't want to study for more tests.

don't get that weird fire emblem game, that game's for nerds Fire Emblem aside, Smash, Breath of the Wild and Mario Odyssey are the big no-brainers. Out now: If you're into JRPGs, Ys VIII is a solid action JRPG, and Octopath Traveler is a good old-school JRPG. I'm not a big fan of the Xenoblade, but Xenoblade Chronicles 2 seems pretty well liked for people who do dig that series. The Mana Collection is also a good set of JRPGs, though $40 is a bit steep for 3 25+ year old games. Dragon Quest Builders 1 and 2 are addictive and engrossing time wasters. Fire Emblem Warriors is also a solid time wasting spinoff of a big franchise, coming from somebody who doesn't typically like Musou games. Bayonetta 1 and 2 are fun action games for a system that didn't get Devil May Cry 5. Splatoon 2 is apparently pretty good, though I don't have much experience with the series. Coming soon: Astral Chain is coming out in a week and a half for more Platinum action goodness. Daemon X Machina is an Armored Core-esque mech game that's 4 weeks away. The demo was good, and the devs seem pretty committed to making it a great, accessible mech game. Dragon Quest XI is coming out for the Switch next month, too. It's already a great JRPG, and the Switch version is looking like the definitive version. Link's Awakening is a classic Zelda that's being remade. Comes out next month, in between Daemon X Machina and DQXI. Luigi's Mansion 3 comes out on Halloween, and is going back to the LM1 style of gameplay. Looks fun. Langrisser 1 and 2 are also being remade for the Switch and come out early next year as a bundle. Conclusion: The Switch has too many games.

I remember noticing this with some mid-game enemy armor knights, and realized that I don't recall ever fighting generic female knights in Fire Emblem before.

All fair. There's enough wiggle room in FETH for it to go either way, and there are plenty of ways IS could say it either is or isn't part of the same world as Archanea, Valentia and Jugdral. They could confirm theories like yours and I'd be able to buy it.

True with Sothis' ears, I suppose I forgot that... Rhea/Seiros isn't going through typical Draconic degeneration. She's going nuts in a very human way over the loss of her mother. After the events of the game, in endings where Rhea lives, she more or less makes a full recovery and lives peacefully, which isn't something that happens in main world FE. Once degeneration sets in, you're bound to become a mindless killing machine and there's no reversing it. It's why every dragon was so dead set on preventing it instead. Macuil I don't remember, but Indech seemed like more of a crotchety old man dragon than one going through degeneracy. He tested humans to see if they were worthy of his bow, and recognized Seteth and Flayn, which again, isn't typical with the degeneration we know of. It's possible they're "fake" dragons, but then that just goes back to degeneration seemingly not being a thing, or a thing nobody's aware of in FETH's world. I'd love if FETH was part of the "main" FE world, since there's a lot of good world building that would add nicely to the other continents. But some of the naming conventions of places(FETH having TWO continents named after Jugdral characters would make things confusing) makes me think it's unlikely, and along with the dragon thing, I'd have to hear it from IS to believe it.

There's no mention of degeneration, which is a core concept in EVERY single game from FE1-5 as well as one that's still brought up and touched upon in Awakening. And not all of the dragons are "dragons". Indech is a giant turtle, which isn't how we ever saw dragons portrayed. Additionally, while none of the manaketes show their ears, it doesn't seem like they have big pointy elf ears like main world manaketes do. ADDITIONALLY, no mention of Naga or the divine dragons, and Sothis being a "progenitor god" is not how dragons were portrayed in those games. I'm not saying it's impossible for FETH to be a main world FE game, but it just seems unlikely to me.

I hope not. I feel like FETH was a response to people who doubted IS could pull such a thing off after the lukewarm response to Fates' three split routes. A good, streamlined experience with one or two splits that don't end up changing the overall story like IS liked to do from FE5-8 is also a good experience, and I'd hate to lose those because IS wants to juggle 3 or more whole stories with every game. FETH is good, but it feels like a game that could have been made even better by trimming some fat. It'd be fine every now and then, but yeah. I enjoy tight, focused experiences more for FE.

FE4 and 5 are a part of the Archanea world. All of the Kaga games and Awakening take part in the same world. I'm also pretty sure FETH is part of a different world. It's usually a big tell based on how So the Regalia weapons are probably just Easter eggs/references.

I mostly used Ephraim for the traits he displays, rather than his role in the story as an actual Avatar/player-stand-in. A lot of the most egregious "Player/viewer-insert" characters display a lot of the traits Ephraim does. Good at everything, solving difficult problems with ease and everyone comes to love them because they're impossibly humble and nice to everyone. But yes, you're right. Ephraim fills a role prior to the events of the story and has pre-established history with multiple characters, which makes it hard for somebody to see him and imagine themselves as him, compared to the other Avatar characters in FE.

If FE continues to do as well as it has been for the last 6 years, and its spin-offs continue to do well(TMS was a casualty of the Wii U), then I can see more FE-related spinoffs coming. And as @Seazas laid out, priority seems to be: Corn Royals+Azura Retainers Popular first geners Popular second geners Unpopular first geners Unpopular second geners With a cast of nearly 70 characters, 26 of them make up those first three tiers. Depending on the style of the spinoffs, FEW will probably be the template for bigger projects that involve Fates in terms of how characters are picked. In those cases, it's pretty much guaranteed the only Fates characters we'll ever see again outside of FEH are going to be the those top two tiers. We'll probably never even see most of the retainers outside of content that continuously evolves like FEH. Which sucks for me, because I'd rather see Nyx or Forrest over seeing Camilla ever again. So that's where I'm thankful that FETH reigned in its core cast. BCDE will always get their spot to shine, and then after that? Pretty much can be anyone. Hubert, Hilda and Dedue I see being the most likely, but I wouldn't be surprised to see any of them swapped out for like, Lysethia, Felix, Dorothea or any other seemingly popular character.

Eh. Even early PoR Ike isn't just "another Marth". He's brash, terse, doesn't like people acting above him, and is casually(Though not on purpose) racist when he first encounters Laguz. Him throwing himself into conflict isn't just used as an excuse to explain things about the world, it's also to establish that, like Hector and unlike nearly every other FE protagonist, Ike actually likes fighting and is very talented at it.

I don't know if I'd say the best overall, but the supports in this game are quite good considering the sheer volume of them. The animations and voice acting help a lot.

Revelations is only polarizing because it's Revelations. I think people would be a fine with a "ALL HOUSES JOIN FORCES" route if it was handled well.

Ehhh. Sigurd, Leif, Hector and Ike definitely aren't "average nice guys"(At least without caveats in the case of Sigurd). Most of the rest are just different takes on tropes Marth established. The closest FE ever came to feeling like it had a "self-insert", to me, was Ephraim, who was just flawless, smart, strong, good at everything and loved by everyone while also being a nice guy character. Older FE games had no issues exploring Lord characters without an Avatar. I'd hardly say Chrom or Ryoma are any more complex than Lyn or Eliwood with Robin and Corrin to play off of. Anyway. I want monsters/big enemies to stay. I like their roles in maps, and it stops you from just parking a character during enemy phase and letting the enemy army kill itself.

Picking 7 or so on obligation and another 20ish regularly based off of popularity in spinoffs is better than repeatedly picking 26 out of pure obligation and then maybe one who isn't part of that 26 gets a spot in Heroes a few times a year.

I will say, Three Houses has a much smaller cast, which gives me hope that there'll be more equal representation compared to Fates. Instead of there being EIGHT royals, there's three. Instead of each royal having TWO retainers, they have one each(And Hilda as Claude's "retainer" is debatable). Including Byleth, that's 7 characters who get priority treatment over the rest of the cast, compared to the 25 for Fates+1 for Azura. That 26 in Fates is almost as big as the entire TH playable cast.

TH is selling very well right now. However, the reason Awakening and Fates sold as well as they did was because they had incredibly longevity because of strong word of mouth. They were considered "quintessential" 3DS games whenever talk of what 3DS games were worthwhile came up, and they were around early enough in the 3DS's life to benefit from the console's healthy lifespan. It's also why Echoes had a pretty solid debut, but petered off a lot faster. It wasn't considered as "quintessential", and the Switch had just released. FETH is in a place to replicate the success of Awakening and Fates, and surpass them in sales handily. I believe it's already selling way better than either did at launch, and it's got the strong word of mouth and the incredible health of the Switch as a console. Which also means IS is probably getting their biggest buckets ready.

But you'll miss possibly the best final map ost in the series!

After 5 years of having Awakening and Fates shoved down my throat, I'm down for IS having a new cashcow to milk. Though ask me in another 5 years and see if I still feel the same way.

Dimitri definitely doesn't go back to his pre-timeskip personality. He comes back from his bloodthirsty self, but he's still bitter, jaded and haunted. He's just better able to deal with those issues. Part of what caused him to go through such a big change in one chapter is Rodrigue's last words. It's cheesy to have somebody's dying words change a person so drastically, but the game actually sets this up quite a bit: Dimitri being "haunted" by the ghosts of people who keep telling him to avenge them are all in his head. He's hallucinating what he thinks the dead want from him based on the words of his dying father, and he has immense survivor's guilt. Rodrigue, however, actually got to tell Dimitri what he wanted from him with his dying words, which was the exact opposite of what he'd been thinking the dead wanted from him. While Dimitri was still clearly having issues and hallucinating, Rodrigue's death FINALLY got him to separate the voices in his head from reality. That's why Dimitri had his whole "Do I have the right to live for myself?" moment, because he's been building up this image of what it means to avenge people in his head for 9 years of his life. He basically has an identity crisis when Rodrigue dies, and comes out of it different than he was before he had to question what he was doing. I definitely think him finding out Dedue was still alive should have softened him up more which would build up to that more extreme flip in personality, but since that's an event that only happens if you do a certain paralogue...

There are a lot of assumptions to make, but Occam's Razor leans towards Edelgard allowing Kronika into the monastery, or at least knowing what her deal was after either Solon or the Death Knight lets Kronika in. Edelgard is involved with TWSITD. Monica was found during the Death Knight incident where they were siphoning blood from Flayn, which is an event Edelgard wasn't super jazzed about, but also didn't really raise a huge stink about. Monica then exclusively talks to Edelgard and Hubert within the monastery, and is involved with Edelgard's plot to turn students into beasts, which is the incident where Jeralt eats it. Afterward Edelgard continues to work with TWSITD and Kronika without having many grievances about the incident. TWSITD and Edelgard obviously don't have the same goals or know what the other is trying to accomplish, but Kronika killing Jeralt happens in the middle of an Edelgard plot, and the next time we see TWSITD and Edelgard, they're working together. I think you're undermining how much Edelgard and TWSITD's plots overlap, especially pre-timeskip. Even if Edelgard didn't mean for Kronika to kill Jeralt, there's still quite a lot of blood on her hands due to how much she enabled them. Monica was one of the students involved in the crest beast incident on/near campus that leads to Jeralt's death, which is pretty important for her actually being there. It would have been harder for Kronika to slip in if she was exiled from the school, or just never allowed in. Just like Solon and Jeritza would have had a much harder time if they weren't masquerading as teachers. Again, this is all based on a lot of assumptions, so you can just hand wave it all, but the game really doesn't seem like it's pointing in that direction. The game seems to imply that Edelgard was aware of Kronika and her presence, and either allowed her on campus or allowed her to stay on campus to continue plotting with TWSITD during school(She did deliberately get put into the BE house), but didn't know or expect her to kill Jeralt.

I'm in the same boat. I don't think it's my favorite, since I'm gonna need time for it to digest. I didn't end up disliking Awakening and Fates, or liking the Tellius games as much as I did until a bit after those games came out. I didn't immediately burn out on a second play through, though, so that's a good sign.