Calico

I'd like to see the next trailer focus on F!Byleth and the Blue Lions/Golden Deer. Or maybe have it address how different the routes are, and go over the personalities of the house leaders. Or talk about gambits and other new mechanics.

@Cysx You're right, they are using bows while in the thief's battalion. Maybe they're generic troops or something. They also appear in Petra's battalion and wield swords, so they appear to be capable of using multiple types of weapons. The mystery class we saw for a few seconds and were theorizing about actually appears to be a palette swap of the troops in Bernadetta's battalion and the enemy that Petra faced off against. They wield bows when they're with Bernadetta, and the enemy wields a sword. They're probably not an advanced class like I thought if Bernadetta can use them. (Though why are Bernadetta's red and Byleth's red + white? )

I don't think they're mercenaries. I think the guy to the right of Dimitri is a mercenary. (Though I'm judging pretty much solely on the fact that they have a metal headband like the generic mercenaries did in the 3ds games. They also wield swords like the class in Byleth's battalion.).

@Cysx Good catch! It definitely looks like the same map. I'm guessing that the troops that Byleth uses are, in fact, low level troops, since I went back and managed to spot them in the previous trailer where Linhardt heals Byleth: They're a presumably low-level class, not a mercenary, and use swords... Are these the myrmidons of the game? Though they could also be a promoted class like a Hero and Byleth just gets access to them early, or they're being used as a placeholder. I think the green coating might signal that he's on a healing tile. The map looks to be too early for him to have gotten a status effect. Also, I just noticed that there are triangles next to Byleth, Edelgard, and green guy. In the last trailer, in the map where the Black Eagles were fighting the bandits, every character but Dorothea had a triangle next to them. Could this be slightly earlier in the game, where not everyone has access to it yet? (Though considering Bernadetta the triangle icon at level 2, I doubt that they'll not have it for long).

Some stuff I noticed: You can see a promoted-looking(?) class used in Byleth's battalion. They appear to use swords. Also, the female version is missing a pant leg, which reminds me of the female version of the archer that we've already seen in Bernadetta's battalion in the last trailer. I wonder if it's a reoccurring thing. In the image, we can see eight nine playable characters: M!Byleth, down in the bottom left, Edelgard above him, another student close to the enemy(which I think is Ferdinand), Dorothea below him, Bernadetta right above the green statue, the unnamed Black Eagle guy parallel to Ferdinand, Caspar to the right of the green statue, and Petra at the upper left. What's interesting is that Linhardt is nowhere in sight. This may ultimately mean nothing, as he could just be out of sight somewhere else on the map, or maybe he died earlier, or the map only allows for eight characters, but it could mean that he joins a bit later than the rest of the class. Edit: Actually, looking closer, the "green statue" is probably Linhardt. If I looked closer I would have seen that he has a blue circle around his feet, marking him as a character. I don't know why he's green.

There's not much footage, just a few seconds of Byleth using a gambit attack and the player selecting Dorothea to attack an enemy, but it does confirm that Byleth will be voiced, at least during battle.

Isn't this thread basically the same as this one? I don't really think we need a new poll since we don't have any new information.

@whase Possibly, but we can see in the trailer that Dorothea's "Growth Goals" has a focus on swords and reason, both of which are strengths, which means she grows faster in those areas. However, the stars are next to Faith, which has a weakness sign next to it, suggesting that it will be slower to grow. It doesn't really seem likely that she'd have a strength and a weakness in the same subject at the same time.

Yeah, not really a fan of the colors/composition of the cover. I hope that the NA cover uses the artwork from the special edition instead, which is actually pretty nice. The colors look better when they're more muted, vs. the cover's art which looks kind of garish in comparison. Also, I prefer the NA steelbook over the JP one.

You know what? I completely forgot about one of my wishes with regards to supports: the existence of completely nonromantic m/f supports. I'd like it if not every single support between a man and a woman ended in romance. And hey, if they get rid of children (which I'm really hoping they do) then there's no need for every m/f support to end in marriage/romance.

March 5, 143 days to go.

I don't know about axe fighters and brigands, but I really, really doubt that they'll merge myrmidons and mercenaries.

Yeah, I think each house will get their own soldiers, so Claude could have Alliance Infantry and so on, but I think they'll all have access to more or less the same types of troops (depending on whether or not there are route-exclusive classes or not), just with a different color palette depending on the house. Like in the trailer, we can see that Petra's Empire Infantry look like mercenaries, and Bernadetta's unnamed troops look like archers. Further along in the trailer, Edelgard is shown using spear-wielding cavalry troops, so it looks like troops will be based off of pre-existing classes, and there are different types of troops. It's entirely possible that Edelgard just gets a special design. I'd be a little disappointed, because her brigand outfit looks great, but it would make sense. I just hope that that isn't the case, and it's a different class. Maybe a fighter? I don't know if having brigand as a playable class would make it obsolete or not. Myrmidons and mercenaries have different roles, so there is precedent...

Her hair does look a little bit shorter in my pic, but otherwise they look really similar to me. Though I guess if they're generic students it'd make sense to reuse models. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if they just reused the same room structure for each classroom.

Anyone have any clue what class this unit could be?: At first I thought she might a female mercenary due to the headgear, but the female mercenary seen in Claude's army looks pretty different: She doesn't look armored enough for her to be a knight, so maybe unarmored infantry lance units are making a return? Edit: Actually, looking through the video, that "spear" may just be an axe at an angle. So she might just be a female brigand, but even so she still looks pretty different from Edelgard as a Brigand.

Yeah, I definitely don't think we only get eight students in each house. I think we'll start off with 8 students, but we'll get a few more over our time at the academy. Some mid-semester transfer students wouldn't feel out of place. Also, I went through the trailers again and took note of some more stuff: Also, it's worth noting that I was unable to find the other guy Dimitri was fighting with in any other shots (which doesn't mean much), or any other possible generic students. Assuming that everyone we see in the Blue Lions classroom is playable right away, and sword guy comes along later, we'd still have 9 starting students, which is pretty weird.

That's actually a pretty good point... Maybe the blonde girl is Dimitri's sister? They do have the same hair color. Or the characters could have just been chosen randomly.

Someone on reddit found a couple of new (kinda obscured) portraits from the Australian limited edition: One of them is of the guy that appears in the new trailer at 2:04 next to the church lady, and the other looks like the unnamed blonde Blue Lion girl.

I only want Anna to return, no one else.

Kinda off-topic, but when does everyone think we'll get our next batch of information, considering the game's supposed to release about five months from now?

@VincentASM wouldn't assuming that there are up to A+ in weapon ranks mean that there'd be 10+ ranks total, not 12+?

Fire Emblem is not, and has never been, an accurate representation of genetics. If I'm really good at stabbing people with a sword and have kids, my kids aren't going to automatically inherit that skill from me. Stats and skills don't exist in real life. If a children mechanic exists in some future fire emblem game, there's no reason why gay characters couldn't adopt a kid together and pass down their skills to their kid via training them. And more representation generally means better representation, because gay people have a variety of personalities and lived experiences, just like everyone else. Having more gay characters would prevent them from inadvertently pigeonholing us into one personality type.

Theory: In between plot-related chapters, you'll have to go out on a couple of non-plot related missions (field trips?), like exterminating a group of bandits/protecting villagers/etc. A bit like in the DS Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games. It would fit with the increased amounts of experience we seem to need to both level up and increase weapon rank.

But Byleth's eyes and hair are blue. When you compare Byleth (here) and Sothis (here), they don't really look that much alike. That doesn't mean that they can't be connected/related in some way, since avatars tend to look nothing like their parents, but I don't feel they look enough alike. I do wonder if Byleth's mother will be important to the narrative at all, since Byleth looks nothing like Jeralt. Why make them look nothing alike if you have a set appearance? Or Byleth could be adopted, though I hope they don't go for the super-secret special heritage again after fates.

Yup, if romance is back, I really hope there's more than one option this time. I'd like to play as a girl and romance other girls, but if the one character they offer isn't my type (Rhajat), what's the point? And hard agree with them cutting out all that stuff to dismiss character's sexuality. I just really hope we get a good lesbian character this time around (mainly to make up for the disaster that was Soleil).