[New Echoes Trailer - Two Armies]

Well, I'd personally like to call the expansion of dungeon exploration, the added characters, the added prologue, the added cutscenes, the added story and worldbuilding elements, the added depth of equippable items (all food/weapon/accessory), the tweaking of minor stats and unit positions and even some additional enemy units here and there all other changes made since Gaiden, but sure, why not.

[Echoes Short Dungeon Pax East Videos]

Yeah the post says you can use "Mila's Gear" to unwind the movement of units, and it's a treasure carried by Silque - its uses are limited, so that explains that gear icon with the three next to it in the recent screenshots and why it appeared in later Chapter One stuff instead of earlier. Interesting. Celica's group seems to have a version of it too; must be like a thirty day Mila Priestess token. Also, the screenshots do show that two portraits can stand next to each other (I remember that being someone's concern since they're more front facing than Awakening/Fates's side facing) - there's one with Kliff and Lukas, and another with our new black-haired Rigellian guy (a nephew of the Emperor?) and Dozer chatting.

EDIT: @The DanMan, I meant the screenshots in the scan.

[Echoes Short Dungeon Pax East Videos]

Some information gathered from these videos:

• The mysterious Effy is localised as Faye, while Kamui, Leon, Valbar, Lukas, Mae, Genny and Boey are all confirmed for their English names. Also Grieth by way of some brigands being members of the "Grieth's Army" faction. Kamui also has a mysterious icon next to his name, very curious. Other localisations include Alm's class staying as Fighter, Celica's Angel spell as Seraphim, Illusion is called Invoke, and what appears to be a Sorcerer is now called an Arcanist, using a Miasma spell. Also "Food" is now "Provisions" and only Celica can access it of her party - though everyone else can access their "equipped" Food via the Items option, I'd wager, since Items only appeared in those that had it - along with the Convoy. Since we first saw the "Food" option from Alm, obviously our main lords are hoarding all the good stuff.
• Support Stuff: We see Valbar has one with Kamui, and Celica and Mae, while they don't have one yet, appear to be growing one, with Awakening/Fates-style glowing animations (same sound cue) appearing after they each engages in combat in range of the other. Curiously, Valbar and Kamui do not have the same thing appear despite having the support already; does this indicate that they're at a top level support? Or maybe you have to assign who to build supports with, like Radiant Dawn but not every character with every character, but after you're done building a level you can switch to someone else to build with while still maintaining the support bonus... No complaints either way.
• In my last speculation post I'd figured that the six little squares underneath the Terrain Bonus number meant it would either be a variable gauge, or just a visual guide with the number of squares being filled as corresponds with the Avoid bonus - tada, it's the latter, as Forest has a 40 Avoid and four squares filled.
• Weapons/Accessories: Saber's got a Golden Dagger (+1 ATK), Alm an Iron Sword (+2 ATK), Genny a Leather Shield (+3 DEF), Kamui a Steel Sword (+4 ATK, -1 SPD) and Lukas and Iron Lance (+2 ATK). Food items: Holey Cheese, Drinking Water, Hard Bread, Dried Meat, Bread and Orange. Appears that enemies can drop silver or gold, the former of which is used in the forging of weapons. So, y'know, forging confirmed.
• The Little Things: Alm's sword glinting at the start of the battle was fun. Fully voiced dialogue finally hit me what with Alm's little monologue and Mae's level up text (Side note: Mae. Goddamn amazing all over.). Dungeons appear to have lots of stuff to smash, and Alm can even dash into them. Dat Mila's Divine Protection remix. The amount of question marks in unlearned skills/attributes is varied; some long ??????? while Genny had a ???? and Kamui a ?????; also since they don't show up in any character not with an equipped weapon/accessory, they're linked to the weapon/accessory's growth. Intriguing thing called a "Turnwheel" appearing in the menu sandwiched between the usual "Units" and "Tactics". Three-ranged archery has a little zoom in effect as the arrow hits. Again, Mae. Everything.

So damn hyped.

[Gamespot info]

Hey, so while it's probable we'll get elaboration on a lot of things when the full website opens/next news wave, I thought it'd be fun to do an analysis for a couple of the screenshots we got, because there's some interesting stuff there that could indicate an increased depth that some folk may or may not've noticed yet. Under spoiler tag because of length, not any plot spoilers, so:

Spoiler

In particular, it's this one that may be a treasure trove of information:

Most of it concerns the status screen, so we zoom in a bit, and...

The first cosmetic thing I'll briefly note is the lack of character portrait like the other screenshots seen in the Famitsu scans, though that could be as simple as it being an option that can be toggled on and off, or it's because the cursor isn't fully on Tobin's sprite in that first screenshot there - as in, the portrait just doesn't load in until you sit on it for a moment. Either or, the full view of that emblem there is a nice bit of art, and, funnily enough, is actually different than the one we see in the Famitsu scan: 

Again, just a cosmetic thing, but the emblems, it seems, aren't based on what kingdom the unit is apart of, but the character's class. You'll notice that the second emblem here has a different shield and some horse legs, as befitting Tobin being a cavalier here. And since the other emblem doesn't have a bow and arrow, it's more likely that the first emblem indicates an infantry unit, and this second one a mounted unit. Throw in one for flying units and maybe another for mage units or armoured units, and yeah, just a cosmetic thing, but neat detail nonetheless.

That Famitsu screenshot also offers two other little differences with our main subject - I'll get to the big red banner box in a moment, but first I want to highlight the bottom right corner of the status screen in both screenshots. Notice how our newest one has what appears to be a clock in a starburst with the number 3 beside it? This also appears in the first Gamespot screenshot on the bottom screen for the Revenant that Leon (that sexy looking dastard) is attacking, but it's greyed out. So, an interactive option for players only? Certain unit types? Unknown. Why it's in these new screenshots but not the other ones has an easy answer: the Gamespot screenshots take place late in Chapter One, while the older ones much earlier, so it could be something that unlocks as the playthrough goes on (like how you can't access Inventory or Support in Awakening for a few chapters). As to what it means... it appears a timer of some sort, and while it could be related to the whole "Food" option (timer of how long effects of food last?), or, hilariously, indicative of some sort of fatigue system (probably not, don't worry), my personal guess is that each turn in battle advances time forward in some way.

Clock symbol in a sun-shape just gives me that impression, and could tie into some other little things - for example, we know that there's a day and month system on the world map, with moving one space on the map being a day's progression, and so it could be that time moves during battles/while in dungeons to have the day/month thing progress more (and thus opening up a variety of options related to it, like certain dungeons opening or certain items being available on certain months, or an overall timer to get the game finished before the world ends/canon catches up to the Archanean imports. Whichever works.). And, from the very first trailer, we saw a battlefield in the late afternoon and another raining while at night, and since there's precedent with maps changing up as turns go on before (rain in FE7, for example), it could be a feature to vary up the grinding a bit and add some new layers - like, monsters could be stronger at night or something, so you gotta kill them in x amount of turns. Again, just wild guesswork, but hey, it's not a bad (if weird, like everything else Gaiden) idea overall.

Okay, now the big red box-shaped elephant in the room: the first time we saw it was in that Famitsu scan, and the mysterious Carrot of unknown but oft-speculated effect. The appearance of Tobin's Steel Bow inside it raises questions, but if it's the currently equipped weapon, then so do you equip food before you use it? And since the other screenshots we saw of the status screen so far don't have the box, but obviously they've still got weapons(/claws for that Revenant), it's possible they're just the "default" weapons, a Gaiden staple - characters who don't have certain weapons equipped just have default "Sword" or whatever. Either way, there's more goodness in that red box - for example, the Steel Bow has a unique weapon icon, which looks awesome in full 3D too, and if you look closely, underneath the icon is a bar, and underneath the text are five greyed out orbs. That looks a thing, doesn't it? I'll speculate it's some sort of levelling mechanic; there's no weapon ranks in Gaiden, so maybe to compensate you can level up your weapons by constant use - it looks like there's room for at least ten orbs, so it could be that steel weapons have five levels, while Iron could have three, Silver seven, and whatever's higher has ten. Levelling up could increase attack power (while adding to drawbacks, if the Steel Bow is what's giving Tobin +3 attack and -3 Speed ala Fates's weapon balance) or unlock certain weapon-related skills/attributes, which is my next thing.

That big ?????? attribute above the other two is a curiosity to be sure. Could be some sort of beta version thing (after all, the last batch of English screenshots had TEC instead of SKILL, so they might still be tweaking), but I'm also looking at the fact that Anti-Fliers attribute was not seen in the Famtisu screenshot of the enemy Archer's status screen. Two big differences between the Tobin screenshot and that enemy Archer - Tobin is Level 5, and has a Steel Bow. So Anti-Fliers could be unlocked at a certain level of the class (making attributes more like the recent skill system) or the weapon's level, and the ????? option is something else to unlock (at Level 10 or when the Steel Bow is levelled up). Or it could be the slot where default weapons go, and since it's empty the icon's suddenly turned gold and its existence got very confused... Also, side note: that screenshot I linked that showed a Revenant status screen also shows they have an attribute called "Terror", which no doubt is another expansion of gameplay - there's been some speculation that the existence of the smiley face next to everyone's HP bar could be a status indicator, so Terror could inflict some status condition, and maybe later you'll fight Revenants that can have a Poison Claw attribute or something. Who knows!  

Some other minor things from the article and the other screenshots: I love the idea that there's destructive crates/barrels in dungeons because it gives you some more stuff to play around with, and if there's gold and minor items dropped with them all the better - the existence of money itself would no doubt expand the game. Towns in Gaiden are pretty sparse, so if they add in shops with certain food/weapons, or Forges (if that weapon level theory I posited isn't a thing, could be you can forge attributes to weapons?), or hell, recruitable characters that cost gold, it'll add to the whole experience. Another minor thing is that the new Villager girl Effy is seen as a Cavalier, hopefully confirming she has the same options as the other boys and we can have a female Archer, Soldier or Mercenary line, of which the original Gaiden was lacking - variety's always good! Oh, and that screenshot of Tobin attacking the Revenant shows off little red bonus bits to his HIT and CRIT options, same as the first trailer showed Alm's CRIT increased while within three squares of his buddy Gray, so, y'know, some kind of support system exists (even if Pair-Up does not; the article mixes up the two). What level of support conversations we get is another post entirely, but I'm glad for the possibility of them at all to give us something to build towards while grinding in dungeons, so!

Anyway, all of these little quirks add up to one conclusion: Shadows Of Valentia intends to retain the spirit of Gaiden's notoriously scary/annoying difficulty quirks, but while giving players (especially newer ones) the option to even the playing field. Like, the 60 Avoid Graves are scary, but in all the screenshots with the terrain there looks to be a gauge with six squares underneath the terrain bonus, so it could be that, if it's not a cosmetic thing of six filled squares indicating 60 Avoid (and so 10 Avoid would be one square et cetera), that it's a variable gauge - maybe if you attack the enemy the gauge goes down one square, making it easier to hit them on your next attempt, or it goes down by the turn (double edged sword if it means you can't camp there and let enemies rush you), or even starts at zero and goes up by the turn (meaning you have to go quick to kill the enemy before they become unhittable to all but your magic users). Throw in the possibilities of added weapon dynamics, attributes/skill expansion, expansion of accessories from the original Gaiden, support bonuses, and Food (Which could be a whole system for temporarily boosting certain stats, along with the possibility of mixing certain ingredients at a Base ala PoR/RD to create full-on meals with bigger bonuses, but again, wild guesswork)... This game is going to be a gloriously weird and cool experience, and by god I can't wait to get more information.

Thanks for reading, and hope I helped out some!