Modamy

@Interdimensional Observer

Reyson is one of my favorite Tellius characters and is always my heron of choice in Radiant Dawn's endgame.

Xillia's a pretty fun game that made an attempt to give everyone have a fun play style with their own gimmicks. You should definitely give it a shot. As for who to start with I've seen a lot of people prefer Jude (the male character). The differences between the two only results in the very beginnings, a sequence in the middle, and the lead up to the finale being different and despite that sounding okay it ultimately adds up to a 2-3 hour difference in a 60 hour game.

Okay never thought of it from that perspective. I'm still not a huge fan of how the game sidelines the rest of the cast and their character development for a romance between two characters while also ignoring those two's relationships with other people.

I like FFVIII for the most part, but Squall is definitely the protagonist from the series I actively disliked after finishing the game. The cast as a whole gets shoved aside in favor of the Squall/Rinoa romance which in my opinion made both characters worse since any character development they had prior just gets ignored and the only thing that matters is that they looooooove each other.

No @Slumber Lightning's not his waifu she's his daughter

My biggest problem with XIII is the soul crushing linearity but the battle system is pretty fun and I probably credit it the most for why I like class based battle systems. X was linear but there were distractions along the way to make it less of an on rails experience. Granted that really depends on whether or not you talk to npcs or had the patience to learn how to play blitzball. You also get an airship at some point so you can explore earlier areas and there are things to do there.

I only played a bit of Tempest myself, but the gameplay was probably the worst of the entire series. Clunky, slow, and repetitive. There was no flow to the combat or combo potential outside of a basic three hit combo with the main character. Your first party member is a suicidal healer who refuses to heal you and is intent on face tanking everything the enemy throws at her so the party member ai needs to be messed around with in the tactics menu if you want them to be helpful (although that's not too different from most Tales games). Zesty's complaints are generally about the story and gameplay. I actually like its gameplay if I'm playing as Sorey or Rose since their movesets actual feel complete. The story feels really weak and the only characters that really get any development or agency in the story are Sorey and Dezel while the rest of the party are just around with no real character arcs of their own. I'm not sure what the issues with DoaNW are outside of the other human party members being at locked levels throughout the whole thing. I liked Emil and Marta and Emil was really fun to play with. It was also interesting to see some expansion on the demon world lore from Phantasia and Symphonia.

I haven't really played enough of Xenogears to critique its story, but I just didn't feel engaged by it. I'll eventually take another crack at it though. Although I only heard about how "amazing" Tactics story and its hard to see why it's so beloved but thus far the story hasn't wowed me. The game is fun if a little on the balance, but the stark difference in UI, mechanics and this mother frickin' camera angle which makes it hard to see most things on the map are differences from Fire Emblem that make it kind of hard to play this game.

The Golden Saucer (you got close). The pre rendered backgrounds used in FF7 are definitely an issue. It's hard to tell what some of the environments are supposed to be and whats traversible or not. I recently played through the game and remember getting stuck on a point where you have jump off a ledge onto a swinging pendulum thing with really precise timing. Most games that are regarded as "masterpieces" tend to be good but not to live up to the hype. Final Fantasy 7, Chrono Trigger, and as I'm now in the process of finding out Final Fantasy Tactics (maybe one day I'll get back to Xenogears and find out if that deserves to be on this list as well). I think it's always for the best to go into those kinds of games with a completely neutral mindset and just ignore anything anyone else told you about them.

Even if con were to be implemented the fact that Edelgard can use axes and swords just makes her more flexible. She can use axes when she needs raw power and swords when she needs accuracy or speed.

I can't really see dragons, shapeshifters, or thieves having squadrons under their commands. Although if shapeshifting units are like the laguz, taguel etc. I could see other shifters in their squad kind of like in Radian Dawn part 3's prologue where Skrimir and Ranulf have a massive horde of generic laguz charging the enemy with them. Thieves not having squads could just be to further limit their combat potential which makes sense since the class isn't meant for combat in the first place. Also the prospect of assassins being able to ignore formation mechanics (whatever those may be) to directly attack or affect the commander sounds interesting and give the class an actual niches, instead of silencer/lethality, that actual makes me want to use them.

Both of those games are coming out this year. I don't expect to see anything more from Three Houses since the game did look pretty rough in the trailer.

It seems pretty likely given that each unit is leading a squadron of soldiers. It doesn't really count out mercenaries who lead their own men or veteran soldiers (possibly of common birth) who are respected and given authority over others.

I didn't really take reclassing into account since I hope it's gone in favor of making classes more distinct from one another and the idea of letting everyone ride a mount just further feels like homogenization of all the classes. Also even if their was some kind of limitation to using a mount like a rank that just feels like they aren't trying to balance mounted units and just saying you have to grind up a weapon rank so that the OP class can be even more OP. My ideal would be each class having skills that only units in that class could use with canto being the cavalier class skill and every unit having a personal skill to help set the apart from others they share a class with. I remember in FE 5,9, and 10 having a single personal skill was more than enough to make each unit unique and allow them to fulfill different niches within their class.

You can't really assume every member of your army would be trained to fight on horseback and it would be even more out there if everyone was trained to fight on a flying mount. Every class is supposed to have strengths and weaknesses, but the games are usually unbalanced in mounted units favor with the most common mission objectives favoring high move units and enemies in most Fire Emblem not needed the stats of classes to specialized in any particular way. We haven't seen enough to make judgments, but there is a lot alongside dismounted that could be done to balance them. We could have a lot of terrain mounts can't move on, a healthy amount of indoor maps, the other class types could have abilities that make them worthwhile using instead of mounts or we could even see new mission types to make them less optimal.

Seems like a DS style game map save point to me. The overview map in the trailer made it seem to me like the maps could expand and be way bigger once you fulfill some kind of objective in them so save points would make sense in much bigger maps.

That was what I was wondering, but it really is too early to tell. Also I have seen other people discuss the idea in youtube comments and there are complaints about the idea of having to play the game three times to get the full experience.

Sorry, until we get a view from a better angle they still look like shorts to me. Don't get me wrong though, I like her design. I was actually kind if dreading the idea of a female lord because I was terrified IS would just make her the new Camilla. I like her design so much I've got her portrait in rotation with the KH3 cast renders for my wallpaper.

I get the feeling formations are going to be the replacement for pair up since that seems to be gone. There are also two "new" stats called endurance and resilience and unless these are just the new names for defense and resistance may be affected by your formation. Like you could choose the triangle formation from the trailer and do more damage but also taken more from retaliation. The angles we saw her from were always kind of weird so it looked to me like she was wearing shorts and leggings with her military uniform.

I'm hoping the avatar this time around has less of an impact on the story and mainly serves as the player's eyes in the world. Personally I hope there are no marriage mechanics, but whatever. I don't know if Byleth will be a Jagen though since the one combat scene we saw him in showed him not even able to double and not doing too crazy damage to an enemy.

I’m surprised at how Luke warm Serenes seems to be toward this.

Been rewatching the trailer the new lord apparently can use axes, swords, and magic.

I don’t care much about the delay, but the game really looks interesting. I think the male lead is a silent avatar so thankfully we won’t be getting another Corrin. Durability also looks to be gone, but combat arts are back and it looks like units, or at least the lord, can use magic on top of axes. Edit - actually durability is back even better

Just from that short look it seems like they are taking criticism and feedback into account. A silent avatar, a female main lord, no durabilit, but maybe a better balance for it, less fan service, more commands from the menu for your characters. the fact that each unit has a squad seems fun and reminiscent of advance wars. Plus the new art style definitely sets it apart from any of the other games.