Interdimensional Observer

Thea was the missing character? CYL Popularity rankings please! I guess family reunification played a role. But I'm sure this won't do anything for Juno. She without knowledge of the popularity thing, seems to be the odd one out. Why not someone else? Nice to see Lugh is also drawn by Yuji Himukai. Outside of some real fanservicey stuff, I like their style. It's bright and cheery and for Etrian Odyssey it serves as a wonderful contrast to the nailbitingly hard dungeon crawling you do. Given FE6's original official artwork leaned towards bold colors and featured a roster unusually heavy with kids, I think this aesthetic suits Lugh, Raigh, and Fae. I'd like to seem them try other characters who aren't kids too, since there is good stuff there in EO as well. So Sue is a Green Bow, not Colorless? Darn. I mean I want Lugh and Sue, but I'm afraid with the overlap I'll just get overloaded with the one and none of the other. I thought the idea now was Seasonals get TTs and New Heroes get FBs? Running both at once is too much grind, and outside of FBs, new characters getting character development/spotlight is rare. Seasonals don't have that issue, so they're fine for Seasonals.

If Leif could ever be so lucky to get two alts, I'd give the Bragi Sword to an Armored Leif, perhaps with the premise that he is now King of a peaceful and united Thracian Peninsula, and thus has retired the MK horse. If he got a third, I want him in a tracksuit on a Summer Sports banner. Title: Lifelong Runner, weapon- Relay Baton (a Staff with some awesome Assist buffing-passive).

Thinking on this in general, perhaps they can give Cecil the Lady Sword. That was unique and extremely powerful in FE3 (though 12 nerfed it), and there aren't many other contenders for it. Although it's effect- being effective on Barbarians/Bandits/Pirates/Thieves (brutish male classes) would be difficult to replicate, and unfortunately Ruby Sword is is able to sorta match this. Also, Amalda for better or worse could easily be another Staff Cav. The complicated thing is Legend Leif many would want to be based on Master Knight, and the cool thing about that is that it can use everything save Dark Magic. Sticking a Sword to him, unless it was really potent and creative in some way aligning the sheer versatility of MK, would seem to some like a disservice. I'd add Perne, turning the King Sword into King Daggers and giving it a strong support effect would be neat. And you forgot Lara the canon Thief (Dagger)-Dancer. Miranda could also expand the Red Tome Cav pool. Machyua could go female Axe Infantry. Carrion could bring the Paragon Sword as an inheritable. Sword with Sword Valor + defensive buff (different from the Defender's).

Not sure if its old, but apparently Sakurai spoke about his working habits and health a little in an interview: "I made some changes from what I used to do compared to now. For example, as a principle, I always left the office by 10 PM, no matter what. Many companies are discouraging extreme overtime these days, too." Well that is good to know. Despite these changes (which still sound incredibly dedicated to the cause to us), Sakurai did face some health issues during the game's development. He mentions that he dealt with "a lot of stomach problems" throughout, including a nasty sounding case of food poisoning. Secondhand food poisoning? Not so good. And in response to events like that, his reactions: Interviewer: Uh, so… Do you take some time off when that happens?Sakurai: No, I don’t. I just get an IV drip and go to work like normal. ...If you use an IV drip on your job, I think you have issues. Please seek help.

@Othin

I'm pretty sure FE5's one finished fan translation was made during, as I once heard it described "the puberty of the Internet" which was also the puberty of the translators. I'm pretty sure a matured, professional translation wouldn't have Kempf calling Olwen a "bitch" either. Said translations of this era, like the j2e FFIV translation, as well as FE4 j2e, and the old fan translation of FE6 whose script is here on SF, all are more casual and irreverent than an actual official translation would be. Why? Maybe its the amateur talents of the translators, maybe it's because they were horny teenage boys, maybe they didn't actually care about nuanced translation and just wanted to have fun. Perhaps they were influenced by the ****ing terrible FFVII translation, which did have Barret throwing in *%@#s (censored swears, I kid you not) on multiple occasions.

Well that'll drag down Ninty's hiring statistics. Although one could say the salary average is being inflated by the upper crust being paid much more, Nintendo did recently list some statistics on its Japanese employees: Total number of employees: 2271 Average age: 38.6 Average length of employment: 13.5 years Average work day: 7 hours, 45 minutes Average annual salary: $80000 ...To stay on topic, I'm not sensing a lot of hype with this banner. I mean the characters selected are rather expectable, and rather eclectic too, united by little. I'm afraid this means IS if sales are poor won't do another BB banner again. I do hope there is a fifth character, someone to draw in a little more excitement.

That is typical of Tales, or at least games of a certain age, or at least from a certain development group for Tales games. Symphonia and Abyss are also like this. More recent titles I don't think are like this.

Finally! I should probably conserve Orbs for the next Tellius banner, but I'm going to pray to Elimine for at least three of these four. We don't know yet whether we're getting a GHB or TT, but one of these should be certain to come right? I'm hoping however it is, they'll be good welfare. -I hope none of the above four are a welfare unit, since I don't want a 3 character banner, BB has gone too long without a banner already. The game still has enough characters left for a 4th character.

True, although it is definitely much more noticed in FE3, owing to the dragon onslaught many chapters have. You only have to fight three dragons in SS, and Thabes and the Seaway is totally optional. Also, I just remembered the FE7 Fire Dragon's Flametongue is the same way. So it's been an off-on thing with dragonkind for numerous games, but never consistently enforced. Likely because back in FE3B2, it makes Draug very useless during Anri's Way and the finale.

Blame FE3 for this. Since Dragons there always ignore Def and Res, like it or not, you will take 16-20 damage a hit. Barring a dodge, which is a 50-50 thing in a pre-2 RN game. The only units who don't suffer this are other Dragons. It is a neat idea to reference, I admit, even if one criticizes it's execution in FEH. As a reminder, Binding Blade with the next banner, barring an Adrift-level altfest, will tie or more likely surpass Tellius in non-Seasonal PC representation both in absolute numbers and as a percentage of their total roster. It presently has 12 PCs, Tellius, discounting the BK as a playable, has 16 PCs. Why already, Binding Blade is still a few tenths above RD in PC rep- 22.22% vs. 21.92% (T766 has with five characters 9.61%). A game with no units at launch and has had many banners vs. one that has had only characters from launch and now one banner. I think this supports your argument with hard evidence. It would be funny to see someone go from playing FEH to a base game and then overreacting when they discover X FEH god/dess is weak in their base game, and that Y FEH peon is really strong. Although subjective tastes and a willing to do things from from efficient means this could easily not happen. And at least for Mareeta, she from what I am aware is an incredible Esty character in her game. Although from what I'm aware, breaking baddies isn't hard in Thracia, and regardless, said unit will still be broken by status staffs. Be one Mareeta or Marty, Sleep is cheap and will make them reaped (and of course it's an elegant way to neutralize Reinhardt- sometimes I wish FEH units had unremovable nega-skills as a check on them). So it's less (if still something) of reference to Odr-blooded Jugdralis having Astra access than I thought it was, and more just a fancy personal for Ayra. Well that isn't so nice.

In principle, I'm in opposition to all Seasonals, regardless of liking the characters they are based on or not. And if, in the case of Greil, the only likely chance of a certain character getting in is through a Seasonal, I still will not use them. Even freebies I refuse to use -although if lacking a bonus unit, I will use the TT unit of a Seasonal TT only for that TT and once it ends I will liquidate them. I bend a little for utility there. Nonseasonal alts are more a mixed bag. I will permit myself my liked Braves as a small concession, other alts and Legendaries and Mythics are dependent on me liking a character enough and whether the alt is justifiable.

If you opt not to grind, I can see some fights actually being a little difficult on Hard- namely a couple on Ephraim's route. Be sure not to once you've picked a route, to save at the prep screen of any chapter's battle, since you won't be able to withdraw and buy stuff or grind if you think you need to. Also, for Chapters 7-8, 11-12 Eirika, 11-12 Ephraim, 14-15 Eirika, and the final two battles, you can't return to the world map between these chapters, so be sure you're ready for these. If you need funds because grinding is eating into you weapon supply, then after completing Chapter 10 of either route, you'll be able to go up to the third floor of Valni, where a chest always contains 3000 gold. While certain characters are definitely better than others in certain contexts, Seth being a Jagen able to last the entire game, everyone here is usable. And with grinding, you can catch anyone up to par with a little time investment.

...You're not familiar with too many Japanese RPGs, are you? It's because of this genre of games that people are assuming the Church. Starting with the PS2-Gamecube era, an anti-organized religion theme entered JRPGs in full force (earlier examples can be found though), and it has not ceased to be a cliche that some games use. Said organized religions, sometimes as part of their schemes for world domination, do in fact exist throughout the entire worlds in question. On the surface, they don't necessarily look so bad, nice even, but as the game progresses and the surface is scratched, they end up smelling like the outhouse of the world is up in your nostrils and everyone is using it. Typically, the games that do this theme throw in a caveat saying "individuals might not be bad and religion itself is not". But this caveat is surrounded by hopelessly corrupt Bishops and others in high ecclesiastic office, and the organization is rotten to the point the only way to reform it is at the edge of a sword accompanied by some fireballs. Not all JRPGs cast religion in a negative light. Dragon Quest might throw in an NPC priest who likes rum or bunny girls for a little silliness, but the religion of the Goddess/Almighty is generally good. And there are plenty which don't take up the theme of religion at all. Fire Emblem is not a JRPG, it is a Strategy RPG. However, it is made by Japanese developers and does and can share in general trends in Japanese popular entertainment media. Already, FE has dabbled in godslaying, which is something you sometimes find associated with games where you with a claymore cut Cardinal Cleptocrat's carotid. Therefore, it is not wholly infeasible that FE is moving in this direction.

I've been rampaging through FE6 for the first time, and at last I'm a little stuck (to be fair, I have save stated plenty so far, but very rarely have I had to use them and try not to- had to slaughter Thite's and Klein's minions though). I know keeping Douglas alive is the sole requirement for 16x, but he doesn't seem to make that easy. He moves, attacks, and isn't recruitable. Now insofar as I can see, I have three options: Take advantage of his low move and just keep playing cat and mouse. Seems the most tedious. Place him against a wall, ideally two, and keep him there with units who cannot kill him and who get continually healed when hit. It appears Elffin he won't attack, since my one try where I thought talking would at least modify his AI didn't do so, and yet rather than try OHKOing Elffin, he tried for the more durable Roy. And I could use Sin and Igrene as well. Melee units unless disarmed I'm guessing could result in him doing a suicide attack. Give my level 12 Saul the Sleep Staff and hope he hits him for up to 15 turns of disability. That should be enough to raid all those chests (too many if you ask me, but it's the result of FE6 strangely lacking enemy droppables) and steal from Narcian, plus the Secret Shop and Zeiss. What other uses would Sleep have? Are there any better options for managing Douglas? He seems quite unfun, second only to 14x so far (14 owing to a Sage Lugh with Pent-like offense and dodging, plus some sheer dumb luck, was surprisingly not the nightmare it should've been). Is this the trial for Aureola? Having the patience of St. Elimine with this guy? I think I'm going to redo this battle from the beginning rather than load a save state. I should've consolidated my forces at the beginning rather than send some in via both entrances, because it sent Hugh (and Douglas) to the right where Roy was not and he became an Elfire gallinipper. Making it too annoying for Astolfo to do his lockpicking.

Roy's Legendary Hero Battle looks like Binding Blade Chapter 1: The Breath of Fate: Roy is approximately where the castle is on the original.

Would it turn to grey immediately, or would they turn a shade of pink first? Perhaps's Sakura's? No opinions on the Fates crew, but doesn't Peri's unpaired ending say she grew out of her habits? That could at least be a plastic-painted-bronze lining, which given how I've downgraded the expressions I'm mixing, I admit is thin.

Au contaire I'd rather Ryoma get it. Corrin on Hard or Lunatic is probably already approaching the soft cap on significant EXP gain. And when the only other two "combat" units in that Chapter are Rinkah and Kaze, the former being nonexistent if I went CQ, there is little lost if Ryoma scored the kill. Therefore, there is little lost if Ryoma wins, and I'm spared the headache of this chapter, which is rather difficult due to Corrin being the only one who can take two hits in this low allies, many enemies, and no chokepoints fight.

Not to say that much, but Part 1 isn't so long nor so easy and loaded with EXP to afford many more. When you regain control of Micaiah's group later, their chapters are defensively-oriented, and people like Sothe, Zihark and Volug will still be there as crutches, but the problem is the enemies will have undergone a large stat spike. Unpromoted units are quite likely to be OHKOed or doubled and killed that way. Being just 20/1 is enough though to survive for any melee unit, barring ginormous HP/Def/Spd screwage. Although I have been able to squeeze in a fourth unit on Normal, and I never touched my BEXP. Leonardo as a backliner might be able to get away with ending Part 1 in his high teens unpromoted, and the first return fight for the Dawn Brigade is very rich in EXP. Also, RD has a 3 tier promotion system. Laguz being the exception of course, they have a level cap of 40 instead. Only Part 1 features Tier 1 allies, everywhere else people start at at least 2. So in practice, there are only two tiers like most games, and Micaiah's team is less the unpromoted and more the trainees of the game. The reasoning for starting everyone else at Tier 2 is never stated, but I think it's because most characters return from PoR and have gained experience as veterans of the Mad King's War. Jill and Ilyana are the rare exceptions who remain at Tier 1.

Somewhere low in the masses. This mode doesn't really click with me. The half-hour wait between battles makes me participate very rarely. It reminds me, so I once heard watching a documentary, that in Islam, while Muhammad visited Heaven and met with God, he walked pass Moses (or Abraham, I forget which) who asked him what God had told him. Muhammad said God told him to tell his followers to pray 50 times a day, Moses told Muhammad that was infeasible and to go back to God and argue for the daily prayer number to be lower. Muhammad did as Moses said and managed to drop the mandatory prayer count to 5 a day, which it remains to be in Islam. For full VG participation, one must do 48 plays with intervals in between per day. Just two off the count of prayers in said story. Now can someone please go and argue it so the Intelligent Sovereign does something more practical? Furthermore, I don't see myself really making a difference given the thousands of players. And multipliers leave so much to luck one shouldn't get overly attached to who they support. The incentive of more Feathers for intensive play doesn't attract me all that much either, it doesn't work for Forging Bonds. I might really like Soren, but that doesn't drive me crazy for this.

It's worth training I'd say 3 unpromoted units in Part 1. Not including Ilyana or Laura, Laura heals, so she doesn't take combat EXP from anyone else, and Ilyana leaves the Dawn Brigade after Part 1, if you like her and want to use her through the whole game though, then you can train her. Jill is a good choice to raise, although her Str can be shaky if anything is going to screw you over with her this time (she kinda starts a semi-Pegasus with Axes statistically speaking). Although usually she turns out very good. Sothe can still chat with them if he has the free time to do so. Ilyana can also speak with Zihark. If you can't get either over there to do so, here is the dialogue you'd see: Also, here are some designer notes on the Dawn Brigade. The developers couldn't fit this stuff in RD itself, so they later released it in Japan. https://serenesforest.net/general/designers-notes/radiant-dawn/the-dawn-brigade/

No mass demotion announced is . I wonder how they'll divvy up the new refines in their two banners? If the promotional image split down the middle is how it'd be split: Sonya, Klein, Delthea; and Merric, Linde, Sophia, then that'd be good on the whole, since no color overlap. This said, I'd prefer swapping Linde and Delthea, so I could pray for Merric and Linde separately on my free pulls. If I understand it that Sophia is sorta bad/outdated, then there is hope he and Raigh will get refines eventually. And I like it that Sophia didn't "steal" Apocalypse it looks like. May Raigh or Niime or Bramimond get it yet.

Erinys/Fury is the mother of Ced/Sety, and in the context of Thracia 776, Lewyn is the canon father of Ced. But in Genealogy itself, you can pick whoever you want, even though the game leans you very much towards ErinysxLewyn, or alternatively, SilviaxLewyn. Lewyn also gets via Seliph a conservation with Tine, Tailtiu's daughter, if he is her father, so that makes this the third leaned in Lewyn pairing. Each mother has a few pairings which through events and love base/growth, they lean themselves towards, which makes it more "probably canon" than pairings which don't, but none are ever canonized in any other game, save ErinysxLewyn in T776. Thracia also states LachesisxFinn through Nanna, but it's complicated here since it is implied that Finn didn't father Diarmuid, Lachesis's son, and that Beowolf fathered him. You can't split the kids like this in Genealogy. Although if you do LachesisxBeowolf, their Chapter 5 conversation has Beowolf telling Lachesis to go to Leonster, where Finn is, and then he says he has known her true feelings. So while Nanna doesn't get anything from Finn in gameplay with LachesisxBeowolf, the origin of Thracia's choice to straddle the pairing lines is found here.

Thinking on Arthurian legend from what little I've read- just Le Morte D'Arthur, I'm not quite sure who or what they'd reference. Besides Arthur, Lancelot stands out as another obvious pick, Guinevere, Tristan & Isolde, Gawain, and Galahad are all the top figures I think, and there is Merlin and Morgan I guess. Arthurian legend is dense though, I think it originates in Wales, goes to England, crosses the channel to France- where Lancelot gets added, and then returns back to Britain. Thinking on typing, the one thing that pops into my head is Arthur's father- Uther Pendragon. I don't think we need yet another Dragon Legendary though. Although to think on the Musketeer quartet, how much do they really recall their inspiration? They have a lot of creative freedom I think. Not sure what they've been doing for the 3rd member of the boxart legendary trinity, I stopped with Black and White, but what would be the companion to Sword and Shield? Would it be a Pokemon both Sword and Shield? Would it be Magic, Knowledge, the Heart/Soul, a Bow or Spear? I'd assume the Shield would be very tanky, and the Sword very powerful, but how in lore would this work? A villain group to me sounds more interested in a Sword to rule over all than a Shield which protects.

Your right in that it is called the War of Heroes for a reason. The primary conflict is Marth vs. Hardin, with Anri's Way an interruption in the flow of this story, and the true final chapters a somewhat separate storyline connected to Anri's Way. The fact that Gharnef's role isn't stated until Chapter 14 means if someone played blind, it wouldn't be until Chapter 8 they realize Hardin hasn't simply changed, he's gone and been corrupted. So until that point, the conflict would appear wholly human. And Marth uses his concerned face when confronting Hardin to really hone into the drama between the two. Initially I questioned whether the Lady Sword was worth the headache to get. Weak bandits don't need it, and eventually they'll vanish entirely from the game- or so I thought. Then i got to Anri's Way, and Minerva taught me how fun OHKOing Barbarians are. C13 Barbarians have 35 HP and 11 Def, the Lady Sword has 12 base Mt, 36 effective, so with just 10 Str, any woman can terminate a Barbarian in a single blow, and this still works on the penultimate chapter. Final Barbarians are too tanky for this, but nobody can OHKO them without a crit, the Lady Sword can still ORKO them, even a base Str Caeda can (never mind she's being OHKO'ed in return), the menfolk can't do that even with capped Str and Mercurius. In other words, the Lady Sword was absolutely worth it. And this explains why New Mystery turned it into just an E-ranked Silver Sword. Ironmanning New Mystery on Lunatic sounds like a lesson in "how to not get past the Prologue" from what little I know. Ironman original FE3 Book 2? Certainly possible I think. Provided you know what the various Starsphere Shards boost and use them, anybody can get high stats eventually. If someone is slow, just give them Libra for +40% Spd growth, and you'll still have room for another two or three, so throw Leo in the same inventory for +50% Str and you have doubling powerhouse eventually. You start getting the Shards in Chapter 3 and have them all by Chapter 12, they don't get merged until Chapter 14, so you've time to abuse them. And even afterwards you have the universal +30% boost of the restored Starsphere until the very last fights. You get the majority of the characters by Chapter 10, so they have at least five chapters of Shard use. It helps that the only stats that remain totally useful from beginning to end are HP, Str, Skill, Luck, and Weapon Level. Def and Spd don't matter against Dragons, and the Barbarians they are often accompanied by are also 0 AS, as are most enemy Bishops and Mages I think. Not to say Spd and Def are worthless, Heroes packing 27 Atk and 15 AS are real frightening. Res is always good to have, but the problem is gaining any significant quantity on anyone is difficult. Dragons are also universally not too bad to kill, just have enough HP to not be OHKO'ed, pack the appropriate tome, use a Dragon Killer/Wyrmslayer, and if you're a Bow unit, Flying Dragons are plentiful enough treats for you. Draug is probably the only unit who has a universally bad time with Dragons, since he can't use Swords so no Wyrmslayer, no Bows, no Tomes, and his high base Def is undercut by Breath ignoring it completely. With the help of the Stars, the only units who I think are totally bad are Roshea, and maybe Sheena and Est. Although you could make the case Roshea is better than Abel in the final fights due to much higher HP, the only real help against Dragons and Magic, neither of which need Abel's higher Spd to fight. And Sheena and Est only suffer from being Ests, baby them and they'll still be amazing. Sans Star usage, Rickard and Samuel are bad, Warren is slow, and Arran is one of the worst Jagens ever, but otherwise, I don't think anyone is horribly gimped even if you lose your clearly better options in the same category.