YingofDarkness

Yeah I have to agree. I new FEH channel was announced for the 9th and the only way I could see a FE Direct happening on the 20th is if FEH was getting something off it too pad out the length of the video. Unless they decide to do one focused solely on the new game, and give us developer insight and a new trailer I can't think of them doing one purely because the video would be too short. Hope I'm wrong but if not oh well. All aboard the E3 hype train!

Well yes but why? It is quite a leap to go from being a controlling husband to being a madman bent on creating the perfect life form. His wife might have been the trigger, but I don't think that is the whole story there. The amount of horrible things you can imagine he did just to be able to even start conducting these experiments is not something that just comes naturally I believe. Just from that passage we can assume some of the horrible things he did since it is obviously from his perspective. The Thanatophages themselves are obviously his creations from his experiments in trying to create a life, and he is obviously happy with them both in him calling them marvelous and pets. He had no problems using the bodies of the soldiers sent in to murder him to test out his little experiments. Some of these bodies might have even been killed only recently considering that "two nights" comment. The whole mask thing to begin with makes it obvious the guy has some serious control issues which is why he only considers Grima to be a monstrosity (he can't control it or he would have called that a pet as well). The fact that the mask is based on his dead wife's face just makes things creepier. I actually wouldn't put it pass him to have used those Thanatophages on soldiers that were on the brink of death to test out what they would do to living people. Although this one is more speculation since he never says he does it. Just that it would be "interesting".

Welp that was not something I needed explained in such detail IS but thank you? Seriously speaking Forneus has to got to be one of the most F-ed up people in the franchise. Why would you even think to do this, and then why corrupt your wife's image like that? I wonder if we will get Forneu's story on how he became so crazy because I highly doubt he was born this way o_O.

Yeap I messed up and I'm still trying to figure out why. I had a very stupid moment, my bad. I know it was a vial but since it had created Grima and was currently keeping him in a form of gestation I referred to it as a womb. By the sound of it Grima was still developing in that vial when Forneus realized it couldn't control it and decided to kill it. I don't think Grima was good more so that he could have been better then he ended up being had Forneus not done whatever he did to him. Nah had destructive urges as well so that might just come from being part dragon. The dark thoughts were most likely a result of his conception however. I can't imagine a divine dragon willingly giving Forneus their blood, and that along with whatever forbidden magic he was using would have resulted in that. We do have examples throughout the series of what happens when you mess around with dark magic, and it is never a good thing. Of course this could mean Grima was damned from conception, but I like to think that he could have learned to control the dark and destructive urges because I lean more on the nurture side of the nature vs nurture argument.

I actually assumed that line was Grima because he is supposed to be the calamity from the western seas and Valentia is in the East isn't it? Looking at Awakening's world map Archanea is in the west and the Valmese continent is in the East. Plus it ties into my theory that the two people are the First Exalt and Naga because that passage would be about them entering into Thabes to seal him. I'm just assuming that those paragraphs are talking about the first time he was sealed although it being an art book about Echoes it would make sense for it to be them as well. I was just never able to figure out when Alm and Celica would have had the time to go to Thabes and go one on one with Grima, or even why they would do so? That is why, for me, it would make more sense for it to be about the First Exalt and Naga. Both would also fit with the final paragraph in that passage being about how the narrator first encountered Grima. That actually made me realize why Grima could have been so much weaker in Echoes then in Awakening. Forneus most likely trying to kill him before he was actually born in the tecnical sense. He was still in a womb of sorts and in the middle of gestation so Forneus forced him to be born prematurely, but even at that stage he had enough power to kill him for doing so. He most likely did it out of self defense and without knowing what he was doing, but even at conception he was shown to have great power to begin with.

I'd like to see the FE world actually have different cultures for each kingdom that shows up. Even if not all of them are fleshed out it makes that world feel more like an actual world. It is what I will give credit to Fates for. The main two kingdoms do feel actually distinct from one another instead of Medieval Kingdom 1 - 4. They just need to expand that into the other kingdoms and give us some actual world building for them. If them being too radically different would be a problem then just base them all of more then just the same couple of European countries. Europe is huge and there is a lot more that can be done with their culture then what IS does.

I actually wonder if this proves that or disproves it. We know that Fates had three large scripts that were cut up so they would fit into the game, but we don't know how much the IS writers cut up. We also know that they added a some extra world building into the DLC which makes me believe that it was either and afterthought, or other parts of that original script IS didn't think was important enough to be included in the main game. There is also going to be a Fates artbook similar to this one so we will see how much world building actually exists for that game, but I'm assuming that a lot of it is actually going to be like some of the stuff for this one; things they created after the game was released because they hadn't noticed (or didn't assume we would notice) some plotholes and extra bits of trivia. The problem with them creating things after the games released is that it means that world building is pretty much at the bottom of their list of priorities with the games. I do think that Echoes is a step in he right direction and love the work the translators are doing with the art book, but I don't think we can use it as evidence of anything in my opinion.

I think the whole dragon/manakete thing is the narrator seeing them after Naga has given them their blood to be able to use Falchion to seal Grima. It is possible that it slightly altered their appearance or gave them the aura of a god which was the other description they used for them. Assuming the other one is Naga then they could also just have gotten a clearer look at Naga (since the other person is enveloped in flames), and just assumed the other person was similar.

I just want a good story with good characters and gameplay that won't make me want to break my Switch. Good as in well written not anything morality based just to be more specific on that. Gameplay has never been much of an issue for me and I always find some characters I like so all they have to do is not mess up the story and I'm happy.

I was actually thinking about those lines when I read through that passage. Grima was never really given much of a chance, and I'm always a sucker for that stuff. I think it is the First Exalt and Naga actually. The timeline leaves Alm and Celica going into Thabes ambiguous, but we do know that The First Exalt was the one who sealed Grima, and he would have needed Naga's power to do it. There is also no pictures of Celica with wings or of her with a pegusus (which could create the illusion of wings) so the female being her doesn't make much sense.

Is it weird that I started to feel bad for Grima from reading that. Forneus just created him to seemingly control him and his power for his own horrible ends, and when he realized he couldn't control him he decided to get rid of him like some failed experiment. Which he was, but he was obviously alive and sentient at this point so it makes me feel odd. I interpreted Grima smiling at him not as him smilingly sinisterly, but as a baby would smile at its parent so the final line made me sad for him and mad at Forneus. Dude got what was coming for him for messing around with things he knew he shouldn't have... I kind of always assumed they did because dragons look so much like humans in their humanoid forms. Yeah sometimes they have tails, and the ears and eyes can be different but otherwise a human couldn't be blamed for assuming a dragon was just another human in the FE universe. I figured they either evolved from the same ancestor but at different rates (Dragons where faster while the humans lagged behind quite a bit), or the Gods in the FE universe created them in their image at different times. However, the only actual FE God that exists to my knowledge is Ashunera correct? I don't know much about the Jugdral ones, but have heard that some of them might be dragons and I know that the rest of the ones in the FE universe are dragons. Somebody correct me on this though because I have only actually played the 3DS ones and just found the info on the others online.

I just want to say thank you to all the people that have been translating all this information for us. This makes me appreciate the story a lot more then I had originally! I wish that this had made it into the actual game, but I have the feeling that most of this was made specifically for the art book. Besides Echoes was most likely given a much smaller budget to work with so there was a lot less they could have fit in compared to Awakening, Fates, and whatever the Switch game is called...that is why if the Fates art book contains all the backstory that should have been in game I will read it all and be livid. That game does not have this ones excuse. My rant aside thanks!

The series did pretty average except for a few if I remember correctly. Thracia, Radiant Dawn, and New Mystery of the Emblem all sold badly and the last two are what prompted Nintendo to give IS an ultimatum. It just wasn't doing amazing and so didn't have much spotlight shined on it until Awakening. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong though. That having been said, I expect nothing this month and a reveal in E3 just so that if something does happen I am not too disappointed.

That actually wasn't a critique although I can see why you would think that from the rest of my comment. My E3 comment was based on what they have been doing with other games for the last couple of years. They show a cutscene, have the developer talk, and only show minor amounts of gameplay for Nintendo's first party titles. This is because Treehouse will be streaming gameplay later on in the day ^^'

Ohhh okay. I got them confused in my head so thanks for clearing it up ^_^ !

You are right that the fandom is too hard on the story (I actually like Awakening's story even if it is generic), but with Fates the waifu and husbando aspects where clearly impacting the story negatively. The whole Avatar worship is a staple amongst harem and otome games (forgot what the male equivalent of otome was so I went with harem). In these games you have a set amount of waifus/husbandos you can choose to be together with and a lot of them do that stupid player worship. This isn't even mentioning the Birthright siblings whole nonsense. They are supposed to be the side we choose if we believe in blood ties over bonds forged over time, and they aren't even your blood related siblings. That was clearly to again pander to that part of the fanbase who would be upset because marrying your actual blood related sibling is something that only happens in a couple of anime not even Genealogy could get away with it, and Seliph and Julia don't count. This isn't even counting the female armor designs literally showing off their asses for no reason. Awakening did this too, but it was not as bad and, again, this is pandering to the waifu demographic. The children mechanic didn't mess up the story because they weren't really a part of it...and that was its own problem. They came up with the stupidest reason to include children purely as pandering. They served to do nothing for the plot, and make zero sense but there they are because of pandering. Fates really is the only FE game where you could say that pandering messed up its story though. Awakening was fine, just fine. Nothing amazing, but it wasn't bad unless you really hated everyone in the game. I'd rate it higher then Echoes purely because there wasn't really a seen that made me question the main character's brilliance.

The infinity thing was just another rumor wasn't it? Didn't the leaker already get disproven last month with that Direct, so why are people still bringing it up? I hope I don't come off as rude as I just wanted to make sure I didn't miss something.

If it is revealed in April then we will just get a cinematic trailer showing off the main lord, his sister, the bad guy, the avatar in some ambiguous way, and main waifu they are going to shove in our face. The main waifu should not be confused with Miss Fanservice who will also be in the trailer wearing Tharja's winter outfit in Heroes. If it is revealed in E3, then we will have the cinematic trailer, followed by some talking from a developer that will spout a bunch of things to try and hype everybody up, and then later on we will see actual gameplay when Treehouse starts showing that off.

Doing this wouldn't make them more money but have them lose it. I remember when Echoes was announced a lot of people were saying they wouldn't buy it unless it had support conversations. Obviously these were the more casual fans, but you need to keep them in mind because they are the majority. Like it or not if a good chunk gets pissed off the sales are going to suffer, and this is exactly the kind of thing that will piss them off. It doesn't do the base game any good either to take away supports because you don't learn anything about the majority of the characters that way. Base conversations and supports are the best way to learn about the minor characters that will never get enough time to shine in the main story because they don't play a big role. Just because IS has dastarized the concept doesn't mean they should be scrapped. All other games past after a certain point had them except for RD and that was one of the things people critiqued it for. The line about just having the soldiers have conversations makes no sense either. Base conversations are conversations. Supports are conversations and only get weird at the S-support normally. If you meant that just have all members of the cast play a major role in the story then that is impossible. The main games usually have larger casts, and even Echoes, with a smaller cast, couldn't implement them all in the main story. This sounds like a horrible replacement for the eugenic feature to be honest (and I hate the eugenic stuff). The problem is that you are assuming that everybody that likes the eugenics sim does so because they like to min=max the kids stats and make them into super soldiers, and that isn't the case for the majority. The majority that like the eugenic sim like so because of the child characters themselves and you can't just replace them with mounts and assume the same people are going to like it. Not to mention the problems with actually breeding the mounts themselves. Why can these mounts suddenly attack when none could before them? Even Fates answered why there are male pegasus riders in their universe and not the others after all. Does the mounts being able to attack mean that every unit that can ride one will be able to double? One attack will be from the rider and the other from the mount. What about tripling? Would the mounts have their own stats and so be able to double even if the rider can't? How would we be able to raise these stats? Will they also gain experience while battling or is it purely going to be through the slog of a breeding mechanic? In that case how expensive are they going to be, and how readily available is the currency going to be? If we are breeding two mounts together will we still be able to keep the mounts? How long until we can use their offspring or are we going back to deeprealm bs again? I can go on but you get my point.

I don't think you should count the Jugdral games. The head writer left prior to Roy's game and since then a lot of the other staff has probably left as well. Not everybody is gone of course, but as IS has gotten bigger with its multiple franchises they have had to hire more and more new staff. Tellius I'm unsure of. I haven't heard much about its development so I can't say if that was a one time thing as well, or if the utter failure of the games sales wise has made them skittish to try something in a similar vein. Fates was probably an experiment meant to go back to that kind of story telling, but they got too ambitious and then further ruined it by making it all revolve around how perfect you are. Fates performed well sales wise, but we don't really know how its story was received do we? Most of the backlash over on the West was because of the localization and three games concept, and the story wasn't really majorly panned except in the smaller FE fanbase from what I saw until much later. In Japan I heard the three games concept wasn't received well either but that is it. I don't know how big of a backlash the story itself had. I guess I'm not sweating the story much because the characters are what make me care. I could be reading the most generic story ever, but if I love the characters I will happily call it a good story. The characters are something IS is good at making which is why I'm not that worried. Yes they can get tropey, but you still have some gems amongst the cast even in Fates. It is why I like it despite hating its story. You just have to dig through the supports to get to them, but that's fine because that is one of my favorite aspects of the game. I like to think that what they did with Echoes is an even better step in that direction as well. Even with a small pool of supports you have a colorful cast that didn't come off as too tropey or stupid. We just need to apply that to the main characters because they seem to be the ones that get the more lackluster support. Maybe because they have to appeal to more people so they tone them down?

Generic doesn't mean mediocre. I just want a good generic FE tale with all important story information (this includes the villain's backstories) placed in the actual game, and not relegated to DLC. I have been reading through this thread for a while now, and have noticed just how many people seem to have so much faith in IS after the screw ups they did in Fates. Would I love something different? Yes, but do I trust them to deliver a good story if they try to do something out of their comfort zone again? No.

I just want a story that doesn't make me want to yell at any of the characters because of their stupidity. Seriously, why would you put a known serial killer as the crown prince's retainer and then try to paint him as righteous. That stuff just makes him look so corrupt. Why is it that the family member that hates my guts is the only one I relate too? None of them have seen me for years, I just killed their step mom (by accident), and I may have even razed their kingdom but everyone still loves me because we are blood family. Except we are not because I need to be able to marry everyone even if it creates plot holes. Honestly, IS can write the most generic FE story ever and I would love it just because Fates lowered my expectations so flipping much.

Well if FRobin is the legendary hero then I have no reason to pull other then the free one. Frankly I don't like these banners, but Ephraim would be so good to have for TT. Horses always just run off on their own, and at least he can survive for a bit...besides he has amazing art. Hopefully the colorless dragon actually ends up being MCorrin later on. They are trying to keep the genders of the Avatars even from what I've seen, and we haven't gotten him in dragon form yet.

I like the bow idea. They could make shooting from 3 spaces less accurate while shooting from would be less powerful. Part of the reason archers rarely get used in my playthroughs is that they are stuck not being able to do anything if you get them at melee range.

DLC is a given at this point, but (as others have pointed out) I don't think we should be looking at FEW and FEH as examples of what they will pull. Instead we should look at the 3DS games, and from those we know a couple that will definitely appear. We will have a couple of fanservicey ones with exclusive CGs of the most popular girls and guys. Hopefully they actually do an international poll this time instead of just focusing on Japan but I wouldn't be surprised if it is Japan only again. There will also be the ones that let you get more experience and gold as well as some story stuff. What I hope they don't do is make the story stuff practically required to understand the main villain's motives and explain other questions the game left hanging like Fates did. The Echoes stuff isn't that bad because it is all pre-game stuff. However, Fates pulled some serious bs I never want to see the series do again.