Interdimensional Observer

Skip RD Hard Mode. Mostly because they for some reason thought that getting rid of the ability to see enemy attack ranges constituted difficulty- it doesn't, it's just tedium. The Weapon Triangle removal was also weird. Only the experience and BEXP reductions have any real impact- I don't think they even bother increasing enemy stats by any noticeable amount. Looking at what you've played, RD International Normal Mode is harder than FE6 and 7 Normal Modes, as well as FE8, 9, 12 and 13 Hards. Did you play Fates on Classic or Casual? With or without grinding? If you didn't grind and played on Classic you'll probably find the Fates you played through harder than RD. The hardest part of RD is the beginning with Micaiah's crew, once you complete Chapter 5, things become easier, though still slightly difficult. Make sure Micaiah is leveled up and has ~11-13 Speed by Chapter 9, she'll have a harder time surviving the chapter if you don't. Elincia's part has one annoying chapter where you only get three playable characters, but otherwise the rest of the game is pretty easy.

If I could rebalance RD a little, I'd have Tormod and co. join in 3-2 or 3-3, and then depart at 3-11 (they return to Begnion to pester the Imperial Army from the Grann Desert or something). That'd fix them up plenty and still permit their 4-4 reappearance.

Anybody ever play Rondo of Swords? The game always caught my eye, but I never bought it due to the low review scores. I mean having to send allies on dispatches to buy new equipment sounds awful, but is the story or gameplay at least halfway good? DSO wasn't a lighthearted J-pop fanservice mess. Invariably it's anime-influenced, like all SMT or Japanese media, but despite Midori and other traces of the more comical side, it's overall on the darker/edgier but not gruesome side. DSO excelled in blending the usual mainline SMT theme of Law vs. Chaos with humanity stuck in the middle, with modern and generally decent anime characters. The feeling of survival and the degeneration of humanity and society is done quite well. I'll concur that DS2 (haven't played the RB version) does do way better with the gameplay. Making each character's stat spread unique and letting you play as more than just MC-Atsuro-Yuzu-Keisuke/Midori for every day but the last was a major improvement. A boss every day was also far better than Wendigo, Beldr, and then nothing at all until Belial on the end of Day 6, followed by a Day 7 boss rush. Though Multistrike was broken, and a certain demon, despite having an Almighty 100% HP/MP drain that targets a human and both of their demons, was disappointingly weak for a superboss.

As a heads up, never forget Koei Tecmo's use of the WTF factor. And by that, I mean Agitha and Bao Sanniang. Two girls who nobody never asked for, but KT said "why not?" and thus threw them in. Any bets on if FEW will have one? And if so, who?

As an SMT fan, I'm interested in Persona, given the shared gameplay. However, I can't get over the high school/dating sim elements in P3 and P4. I used to be able to tolerate it in Luminous Arc and whatnot, but now I really can't. Persona 1 and 2, which are a little more serious have no dating sim aspect it seems, but appear to be quite dated in gameplay (though I'm enjoying Soul Hackers right now, also called out as being dated, and cleared SMT 1 iOS three times). And I can't get over the Hitler use in P2 either (I abhor the masses' obsession with the Nazis). I was considering PQ given I like EO as well, but one look at the images on the 3DS eShop turned me off (maybe if it goes on sale for 9.99 I'll buy, but not any higher- also, can I turn off the voices in the game?). Oh well, guess this is a series I'll just have to look on from a distance without ever touching. Edit: I have beaten TMS though- with generous button mashing during conversations and a skipping of every cutscene, even the FE theme one. The gameplay was the game's redemption. And I forgot to say I enjoyed Devil Survivor 2 (plot and gameplay were good- the Fate Level chats were very much tolerable for the most part), despite my profile pic being taken from there. I also tried to get into RF, but only ever completed the first and Frontier.

HaarxJill sounds like a forced marriage. IS just had to tack one on to what was fine as a platonic Shiharam admiration/captain-corporal relationship. Not every strongly bonded male-female duo has to wed you know. Thankfully RD wasn't Fates or Awakening- imagine the cringeworthy S support. Also, I just noticed Jill doesn't get a single male support in PoR other than Haar. A girl who is never placed into a romantic situation and who isn't abnormally shy or antisocial either (Jill is fairly normal)- I like that.

Comrades sounds nice in composition, but there is unfortunately no high-quality update of it, we only have the original version, which is restrained by the GBA's terrible audio quality. I haven't played a game with Join Us! And I'm not going to spoil it for myself by listening to it outside of its context. The same for Gaiden's and Thracia's. Together We Ride, well I think it rarely suits the situations where it plays. Partly this I think is because Smash has made it out to be so much more than it actually is. Not to say that is bad, I still like it very much. SD/NM's version- "Come, Join Us" is the best FE series in-game version. Mystery of the Emblem Book 2's (confusing called Theme of Encounter) version ties for second with Blazing's. The original Dark Dragon and the Blade of Light version (also called Encounter) comes in fourth. The Mystery of the Emblem Book 1 version (also called Theme of Encounter) sounds terribly glitchy on a few notes. I scarcely recall the recruitment themes for Fates, partly owing to me not wanting to actually read the recruitment conversations in the slightest, but from what I might recall, they were a little more mellow than some of the others. At the end of this process of deduction- I choose With Us!/Stalwarts Unite! The beta recruitment theme for RD is awful- but, that is why it is beta.

I think somebody tried a fully auto battle run on Phoenix-Normal mode. As the AI won't open chests or seize or recruit, the player does have to intervene once in a while. Might try that once myself to see how stupid the AI really is.

Nothing too interesting here. Tanith is little old looking for 27, and Haar looks like he'd be in his forties too, but such is Japanese popular media. I do notice it says Haar likes visiting other members of the Fizzart family. Jill has living family? I'd have loved a playable cousin Zeiss- can't get enough dracoknights in RD. I do like how, as seen it the Tanith profile you just translated Kirokan, IS made it canon that everyone A ranked everyone they had a support with, or at least several of them. Plus, reading through the PoR supports, it's interesting how IS picked up where many of the support chains left off or derived something from them (like Sothe-Tormod mentioning Micaiah and Muarim as being their parent figures, and then big sis Miccy and big bro Mua get their own parent-parent talk in RD). Oh what a shame supports had to be neutered in RD. Imagine the explosion of new supports between characters new and old, and the furthering of old relationships!

I'm sort of liking this dragon-heavy world stuff (this does not contradict my earlier poetic polemic). I can see it one vision of it now: Flying manaketes need not have mounts. We could make different dragon types have different physiology. Some dragons have wings in manakete form, while others don't for instance. Those with wings can be our flying units. Similarly, bulk, strength, and scaliness could be traits of manaketes suited for armor classes. And the serpentine Asian-dragon-like-manaketes could be suited for bows or katanas. If, as in my quick vision scenario, made formshifting an art require years and years of intense dedication, then we could have some manaketes who actually fight in dragon form, but the majority of units don't. Horses I admit we can't have, but wyverns/feral dragons could work. Basically create a "Dragonmancer" class, manaketes who can tame their feral brethren, or wyverns (what apes are to humans).

I don't see Ike/Mia listed among the cut supports on the Unused Content page. That said, even if it is in the data, I don't think it would have likely panned out very well. Mia's supports are a bit flat, comical, but not the funniest. Ike is rather passive in most of his supports. For the two to have a support that amounted to more than just the very generic "training to build bonds", it would require the unexpected from either character. Movement type-wise, Mia and Ike are the same, which is good. Fire + Earth at A would offer 1 Atk, +7 Hit, and 15 Avoid. Nice for Mia yeah, but Ike might have better choices. Soren can give the same 1 Atk point, but more 7 more Avoid. Though Ike can't plunge into a pack of enemies if Soren has to be by his side, whereas he can with a trained dodgetank/Wrath Mia. Oscar would be ideal for Ike, between their fast support and their +30 Avoid boost, but Ike might be a little immobile for Oscar, and Oscar might prefer to give his A to Tanith or Kieran. The rest I'd say Mia exceeds.

I'm not going to list any averaged ratings unless more people rate, but I'll casually bring up a few more characters every couple days just for the sake of it. Take your time, life can be busy, and supports do take some time to read and digest. Read and rate whoever you want whenever you want. The next three are Gatrie, Soren, and Mia. My Opinions:

I posted this in a different topic before. Ignore it if it starts sounding familiar. Note the names are intentionally generic. And how about a map that starts as a timed seize, but that then turns into a defend? I was thinking something like this: While the enemy's main army is distracted by allied forces some far distance away (not on the actual map), your military unit sneaks into a port city. Your job is to capture the docks before the enemy ships set sail with valuable materials or personnel. After you complete this task, word comes that the enemy has taken notice of you and has had some troops withdraw from the main battle to stop you. If the enemy manages to seize the docks again, they'll set sail and your forces will be crushed. Hold onto the docks until your allies hopefully manage to arrive and flank the foe now pushing on you. To complicate things, make it so there are things you can do to get to the docks sooner, but which will be left as such when the enemy arrives. Meaning if you destroy a wall to get to the docks quicker during the seize portion, the enemy reinforcements for the defend part, who will at least in part appear in the area where you started, will be able to take advantage of the destroyed wall to get to you sooner, making your defense more difficult.

@Etrurian emperor I pretty much came to the same conclusion as you on the different types of MCs independently. I call them: Warriors at Heart, Pretty Boys, and Female (sorry ladies- you ain't distinct enough to warrant a division). I used attach the word "Perfect" to the Pretty Boys before, but I feel that is unnecessary now. As the Warriors At Heart and the Pretty Boys are capable of being perfect or imperfect. Eliwood and Leif (so I've heard) are imperfect Pretty Boys. Hector and Sigurd are imperfect WaHs. Ike is perfect- and he is a total Warrior at Heart, and the perfect Seliph is a total Pretty Boy. Only the females lack perfection- Micaiah isn't perfect at the end of Part 1, and at all in 3, Lyn can't be perfect because Mark, Eirika is stoned out of perfection, and Robin/Corrin can be male. Unless Celica is perfect, no female lord is. Chrom is both regal like a Pretty Boy, and muscular like a Warrior At Heart- he straddles the categories. Leaning towards the former in plot, and the latter in gameplay.

A problem I find with the kids, beyond being shoehorned in, is that their customization can be kinda superfluous. You can pass down two skills- which is nice, particularly if they're from classes they cannot/you won't be sending them through or that comes late. The hair color is also a nice touch. The caps however, matter only for the postgame, and probably won't even be reached until the very end if ever of 13 or 14. Loads of classes is nice, but sans a grind, you won't be getting too many of the good skills they offer for a kid. Also, E rank hell can make ingame use of said class abundance difficult, particularly in FE13 and especially for Brady and Yarne. Growths? Sure the difference by 20/20 between a Effie and Beruka child will be 6 Str (15%), but you can't turn Ophelia into a top notch Berserker even with Effie- the children's' base growths limit their elasticity (Ophelia's 15% Str in this case- 32.5% with Effie is still bad). Also, in Awakening, a parent contributes only a third of their growths to their child, which is painfully small and hardly makes that much of a difference unless it's night and day between a child's growth and the parent's for a given stat.

Ashnard using Lehran's Medallion is no different from a random mage casting Fire or a cleric Heal. Magical things exist in FE, they always will and I have zero problems with that. When magic is used by humans, I don't have a problem. What I was waxing poetic against was when humans are doing only or primarily the bidding of magical beings. Sephiran I admit is blurry- acting both on his own initiative and his goddess's- and that works too. I damned Validar because all he is a tool of Grima who willingly gives his own life for it- he has no independent motives. Sephiran I'd argue died not only for Ashera, but also out of his weariness with life and wanting to end it- he did try suicide several times Nasir/Gareth says. And suicide would defy his eternal duty to Ashera. Relevant to this discussion babbling about a non-FE series and fanfiction you can ignore:

Never King, only a Lord, a noble, not royalty.

To make Revelation work from a gameplay perspective where there isn't easy defection, we'd need to do one or a combination of two things, neither that easy: Have Corrin only recruit freelancer characters (Nyx, Rinkah, Shura) and personal characters (Felikob, Silas, Kaze) until the defection of Nohr and Hoshido occurs. The problem is that we don't get many freelancer characters thanks to Fates's love of retainers (which in itself wasn't a bad idea). De-childing the children characters might help too. Or, we invent a new kingdom/reinvent a currently existing one with new PCs. It's obvious this would require a lot of work. Easy little sister defection we could probably keep too without hurting the storyline too much. In my work in progress of a Fates Revelation rewrite (I posted my CQ one on the Written Works forum) I just did Freelancers + Corrin Personals + Former Children. At the turning point in the story when the real villain rears its head, the retainers join, and its only for the last quarter that the royals themselves are actually playable.

Isn't Takumi implied to be a momma's boy too? Though when I took her out with him, no special dialogue (he did love Pursuer though- by the way, why didn't they hack Mikoto an S Yumi so she could use the thing when they hacked Iago a Staff rank on CQ?). Make him one of her children too.

Ike is not royalty. Ike's father Gawain/Greil was a general in the Daein army before he left it due to Lehran's Medallion things. Whether he was a noble when a general, we have no idea. In Path of Radiance, Ike after C17 is given a title and made a Lord so the Begnion troops Sanaki gives him and Elincia will respect him as their commander. At the end of PoR, Ike remains a noble in Crimea. But sometime before Radiant Dawn starts, he abandons the title and goes back to being a mercenary finding aristocratic life boring, stuffy, and other things like that. Ike never reclaims his title.

Give us evil Divines, good Earths, and how about exploring dragons that aren't one of these tribes? Dragonology is so underdeveloped for all its importance in FE. But let us axe the dragons entirely, or relegate them to a secondary role. Relying too much on the supernatural can detract from human conflict. Make the mythological the tool, the inert object, make the human the prime mover of the world. I like Walhart, as underdeveloped as he is. He is brutal in his actions, but he is a Humanist, an Atheistic Humanist. His concern is for humanity and protecting it from itself and from interlopers like Grima. Is he a little too harsh, a little too self-centered? Does he hire one awfully kindergarten-evil underling? Yes to all of those. But there is a selfless idealogical side beneath that selfish love of conquest. Praise to Walhart! Praise too to Travant, to Gangrel, to Ashnard, to Zephiel, to Sephiran! Praise to all FE villains who were not moved by the inhuman, and who went their ways without such, or who used it for their own ends. Pity to Naesala, to Lyon, to Nergal, to Gharnef, to Garon, to all who were moved by the alien supernatural! And immolation unto Manfroy, unto Riev, and unto Validar for they with all stupidity gave themselves wholeheartedly to the foreign anathema of Man!

Here is a comparison, if a little off in size: Better detail and better shadowing on Old Gore, his face is more serious too. The brightening of the Strange Journey aesthetic is just bad overall. SJ is supposed to be nitty-gritty and realistic in style- making the colors lighter and decreasing the definition of the lines undoes this and makes everything look cheaper. Zelenin Comparison: They're trying to turn her into a 18 year old pop idol who does whatever the attractive-to-all MC wants her to at this rate! I will never be able to enjoy 'Brainwashed This Way" ever again. The generics I say were better off without face sprites at all too, the new one for the girl looks painfully generic anime. Also, that failure of a game (b/c Japanese game on Xbox = not gonna make money in Japan) called NINE gave us a beautifully SMT Maria? Why in the world didn't SJ use her before? With the Mothers being so important, giving Law their own would have been a nice move. The Holy Virgin Mary is the mother goddess worship tendency of humanity funneled into an acceptable (and very popular) form for Christian monotheism. To leave her out is blasphemy!

Renault's problem isn't Light Magic, it's having 12 Magic at --/16! That magic is so bad, with Divine he only deals 5 damage to the lowest Res boss morph in Final. Bad even without considering the 30 damage 37 critical monster of Luna!Athos. Given his origins as described in his supports, it isn't surprising his Magic is so bad. Though if they had upped his Con to 12, thrown him an Aura tome, and bolstered all his non-Magic stats a couple more points, he could have been a fairly interesting (low power but very high durability mage) last minute recruit. I mean he gets 3 chapters at most to strut his stuff (one of which has Kishuna), it's impossible for him to be broken. If reclass were around, he'd probably would have made a solid Hero.

Refa did what I was about to, but opted not to. And don't forget that at base Kent and Sain will both be inferior to the purple haired god. I'd say in theory Sain makes the better Lyn Pally due to capping Str even when early crested, and 18 Spd should be enough for doubling most things. Of course this all depends on whether Kent's couple extra Spd have any meaningful impact in the short- and mid-terms.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention that when I edited the OP earlier I upped my personal Titania rating from a 4 to a 4.5, my bad. @Extrasolar You can still give your ratings on the first round of characters- I'll just recalculate everything later. I like having more opinions and voices involved.