lenticular

It comes up at least one other time in Three Houses, in non-CF chapter 16, where you have to defeat Ladislava, Acheron, Ferdinand and Lorenz. I want to say it comes up somewhere else in Three Houses as well, though I can't immediately think of where. Unrelated, another option that I like are maps with multiple possible objectives where you can choose which one you complete. Survive for n turns or kill the boss. Kill the boss or rout all other enemies. That sort of thing. More player choice is typically a good thing.

None of the above. It's Sothis. Whose powers include but are not limited to time travel and interstellar travel (or possibly intergalactic if that one advice box about the distance of the Blue Sea Star is to be believed). She's far and away above anyone else. If we disqualify her on account of being sort of dead, then the winner is Byleth for being the person who carries Sothis's power. If we say that Byleth hasn't yet learned how to use that power, then I agree that it's Rhea.

I am halfway tempted to make an actual Three Houses trivia quiz now. That sounds like fun. (Though it wouldn't have any Three Hopes stuff in it if I do, since I've not played that.)

This is maybe drifting a little too far off topic, but do people typically find themselves doing the Caspar/Mercedes paralogue very often? I think that out of all the times I've played Three Houses, I've only ever done it twice. The combination of the awkward recruitment requirements and the mediocre rewards means that I very seldom bother with it.

I don't really see Eirika as being particularly less prominent than Sigurd, Lyn, or Micaiah, and she's almost certainly better known than Leif. The characters from more modern games (Byleth, Celica, Corrin, and Lucina) definitely have an advantage over her, as do the Smash Bros characters (Marth, Roy, and Ike), but I wouldn't go further than that. The Tellius games may have a cult following among hardcore fans of the series, but I don't think that Micaiah is widely known at all. I'm pretty sure that Sacred Stones outsold Radiant Dawn by a pretty wide margin. And I don't really see Lyn as being anywhere close to a mascot; I'd say that she's even more overshadowed in her own game than Eirika is. As is Micaiah, for that matter.

With Jeralt's Mercs, part of the value in the Assault Troops gambit is down to the inherent strength of the gambit, but I think that a lot of the value actually derives from the uniqueness. Consider: there are situations where Assault Troops is better than Disturbance and situations where Disturbance is better than Assault Troops. In reality, Assault Troops is probably better in more situations than Disturbance is, but for the sake of argument, let's imagine that they are equally good and there is a 50:50 split of times you want each. Even if that were the case, it is still a point in favour of Jeralt's Mercenaries that they have Assault Troops, because it is a much rarer gambit, with no other sources at all early on. A specific user of Assault Troops will see more action than a specific user of Disturbance simply by virtue of not splitting up the duty between multiple different users.

I think that, of the three initial battalions, Jeralt's Mercenaries have the highest upside but the least reliability. Or to put it another way, they have the highest mean but also the highest variance. Crit and Avoid -- at least in the early game before they can be stacked -- both add to randomness and uncertainty. Maybe you'll get the lucky crit or the lucky dodge, but then again, maybe you won't. Almost certainly you'll get at least a few if you keep this battalion equipped for long enough, but you won't know when. Adding hit, on the other hand, reduces uncertainty. An extra 10 points of hit can help make sure you land your hits, and allows you to plan through with certainty. The different gambits are similar. Compare Assault Troops and Disturbance, and Assault Troops clearly have the higher potential. When it hits, it does more damage and can hit more enemies. That's great. But it also doesn't hit as often, and sometimes, the extra reliability is more important than the extra damage. I recallthat back when we did the gambits thread, I generally rated accuracy higher than most people, because that fits the way I tend to use gambits. So, which is better overall, high upside or high reliability? Well, that depends. Partly it depends on the situation, but to a large extent it also depends on playstyle and personal preference. So I don't think that it's a surprise that we're seeing a wide range of scores here.

Thinking about how I want to grade overall, I think that my basic rule of thumb is that if I'm actually going to use a battalion in a decent number of runs, then I'm going to be ranking it somewhere from 5-10, whereas if I'm realistically never or very rarely going to be using it, then it's a 0-5. With 5 being the crossover point, for battalions that might see rare play, that I won't ever use but are still OK, or that I will use but wouldn't miss all that much if they were gone. So, with that in mind, all of these have to be at least a 5, because I'm definitely going to be getting some use out of them. If memory serves, it's literally impossible not to get them, since I think that that quest is forced. And then they're the only battalions available for a chapter. And while more do become available pretty quickly, we're talking the early game, when money is actually a somewhat relevant concern. So even the worst of these do last for at least a few chapters. Even if they aren't that impressive, a few extra stat points is never bad (unless you're putting a negative to magic attack on a mage, but I'm going to assume that nobody is doing that). An extra gambit to throw at the Black Beast in chapter 5 (or anything else that needs it) is never bad. Being able to start battle training authority earlier is never bad. Jeralt's Mercenaries are certainly the one that stands out to me the most, since they remain the only source of the Assault Troops gambit until the middle game. Being able to get that slightly bigger area of effect is nice when everything else you have is stuck at only two squares, and if you give it to a unit with high charm and hit, you don't feel the lower accuracy of Assault Troops very much. I am sometimes tempted to keep this battalion into the middle game for units that are lagging on Authority, but often regret it. Units that are lagging on Authority are generally the ones with a bane, and these units mostly have terrible charm. The one exception is Hilda, who has great Charm but terrible Dex. In any case, they aren't going to want a battalion with +1 Charm, no Hit bonus, and only 50% accuracy on its gambit. For the other two, I rank the slightly higher Hit bonus on the Seiros Mercenaries more than I rate the better Gambit on the Church of Seiros Soldiers. Overall, these all fit around the range of "I'm using them, but I wouldn't notice too much if they weren't there". My final scores are: Jeralt's Mercenaries: 6/10 Seiros Mercenaries: 5.5/10 Church of Seiros Soldiers: 5/10

Sure, and I disliked it in a lot of those cases too. I'm not going to start liking it just because it's common any more than I'm going to start liking avatar worship, for instance.

Looking at the art and character design first. Enough has been written about the hair that I don't feel I have anything to add to the conversation, so I'll just say that I'm not really a fan and leave it at that. I don't mind the eyes, though. I have a friend with heterochromia, so I mostly just think of it as the way that some humans are. And sure, it stands out more when you've got huge anime eyes in anime colours, but I don't mind it. There's a lot of variation among actual humans, and I don't have a problem with showing a bit of that. The outfits, overall, I quite like. They're not my absolute favourites ever, but I think that they're solid, and have hit the aesthetic that they're going for. Other than the hair, the only bit that I really don't care for is female Alear's breasts. They just look... I don't know. Weird. Like the blouse that she's wearing has been moulded around them, I guess. I'm hoping that they look better in the game with an animated character than they do in the static images that I've seen. In terms of story and characterisation, it's honestly too soon for me to judge. I'd be lying if I said I didn't have any concerns, but I'm going to wait to see more before I jump to too many conclusions. One thing that I will say, though, is that it does seem as if Alear is going to be a hybrid Avatar/Lord in the same vein as Corrin. Robin had Chrom and Lucina. Byleth had Claude, Dimitri or Edelgard. But from what we've seen so far, it doesn't seem as if there's any co-lord to stand besides Alear. This is not, in and of itself, an inherently good or bad thing, but it would mean that there's a lot more riding on Alear's characterisation than there might otherwise have been. So hopefully they do get things right. Fingers crossed.

In Shadows of Valentia, Genny and Silque both start off with both Recover and Nosferatu, I believe. And of course, there's Three Houses, where everyone can attack with anything because Three Houses is Weird. Which is still only five games out of sixteen, but notably includes each of the past three mainline games, in some form or another.

I have two main problems with special editions. The first is that I'm rarely, if ever, interested in all the stuff that gets bundled. I like art books, for instance, but have zero interest in posters or steelbooks (seriously, can someone explain to me what the point of a steelbook is supposed to be?). The second is that I never know whether I'll like a game enough to care about the miscellaneous gubbins and tchotchkes until after I've played it. Maybe I'll end up absolutely loving Engage and really wish that I had that art book, but maybe I'll end up hating it, in which case I definitely won't. I don't think this special edition is particularly egregious in comparison to other video game special editions, but I also generally see most special editions as being a gamble at best and a rip off at worst. So no, not worth it to me.

Personally, I'm hoping that Heroes references are kept to a minimum. At that point, she's basically stopped being an Awakening character and is only a Heroes character. And I'll admit that part of that is just that I don't like Heroes, but I also feel that if there is to be Heroes representation, it should;'t come at the expense of other games.

I'm not really expecting to see beast units, but if they are here, one possibility would be to have one of the four realms be the beastfolk realm. That feels like something they could do a lot with if they really wanted to lean into the idea.

Welp, guess it's time to try to get back into a Three Houses mindset for this. And also time to see how much my opinions have changed since the gambits thread. I look forward to looking back on that one and seeing how many times I end up saying "What? I gave that gambit that score? What was I thinking?" Let's start off by considering a few elements that influence how good (or bad) a battalion is: Stats. Obviously. More stats are more better. Gambit. Also very important. A battalion with Stride is much better than one with Recovery Roar. Availability. Earlier is always going to be better, of course, but there are also notable break points for Chapter 5 and Chapter 13. Chapter 5 is the last chapter that I personally consider part of the early game difficulty hump for Maddening, and is also the first monster unit you encounter, so battalions you pick up before here are very useful. And then Chapter 13 is Chapter 13 (except on Crimson Flower). Ease of acquisition. A relatively minor point, but not negligible. All other things being equal, a battalion that requires the completion of a difficult paralogue is less good than one that is given automatically, for instance. Authority rank. Lower is better but this does depend somewhat on when you get it. Having a high rank requirement is a bigger detriment for battalions from White Clouds than ones from close to the end of the game. Endurance. I don't find this tends to be relevant all that often, but it still does come up sometimes. Maybe people who use Battalion Wrath builds more than I do get more value from this? Movement type. Flying battalions are strictly better than non-flying battalions. And given how valuable flying units are, they're often quite a bit better. Synnergy. Do the different stats and abilities that a battalion offers come together to support a specific playstyle or build, and is that build strong? Uniqueness. Does a battalion offer something that few or no other battalions do (eg, Nuvelle Flyers or Opera Co Volunteers)? Am I forgetting anything? I will try to resist the temptation to be awkward and give ratings of sevenths or eightyoneths. I can't promise I'll succeed, but I promise to try.

It depends. Are we talking about what I'd actually do if I was in charge of making the game and trying to have it be successful, or are we talking about what I would personally like to see in a game that was intended purely to make me happy? In the former case, I'd come up with something a lot like the list that @Dark Holy Elf came up with. Except I'd probably replace the Fates characters with Engage characters. If it was made just for me, then I actually have two possible answers. One is that my Mirages would be Itsuki, Tsubasa, Touma, Kiria, Eleonora, Mamori, Yashiro, and Maiko. They would be summoned into an existing Fire Emblem world after the end of that world's big storyline war, with the Mirage Masters being characters from that world. The idea is that the mainline FE characters know how to fight, but through the course of their war they have lost culture, have forgotten how to make beauty and have fun. So the game would be about bringing light back into the world after the dark times of the mainline game. The other alternative would be a direct sequel to the first game, featuring mostly the same main characters. Except it would be set ten years later, and they'll all be washed up has-beens, who have been chewed up and spat by show business. The one exception to this would be Itsuki, who would be in a management role, similar to Maiko's role in the first game. The one new character would actually serve as the game's main character and would be an idol under his management, who was a big fan of all the crew from the original game. She and Itsuki would then have to work to bring the old crew back together, finding a place for them in show business that wasn't reliant on youth and being the new hotness. In a meta-commentary sort of way, the FE characters they'd get as mirages would be characters from the older, more forgotten games. Thracia 776 characters would be perfect, but I've never played that, so instead I'll say that they get mirages from Radiant Dawn and Sacred Stones. Let's say Eirika, L'Arachel, Seth, Myrrh, Rafiel, Skrimir, Nolan, and Heather. Would these ever happen? No. Would they be successful if they ever did? No. Are they far too high concept? Definitely. Did I actually meet the requirements in the original post? Only just barely. But this was the version of the hypothetical sequel that is made for my own personal edification.

Yeah, I'd agree with this. Having multiple bosses also goes some way towards mitigating another problem I have with the Defeat Boss objective. It always strikes me as the height of absurdity when I'm actively trying to avoid a boss, not because it's dangerous but because I want to avoid finishing the level before I've completed all of the side objectives. The Valley of Torment map in Three Houses is one of the worst for this, since the boss is mobile and there's a chest very near to where he starts. With multiple bosses, it's generally easier to avoid accidentally completing a map too soon. And since we're talking about variants of standard objectives, I'll also say that I like Tellius's Arrive objective and the Fates version of Seize a lot more than I like classic flavour Seize. Having Seize be limited to the main Lord only feels too limiting to me. It's not as bad as "defeat the boss with the main Lord" objectives that several endgames have, but I prefer to be able to split my army in whatever way they will most effectively fight, rather than always be forced to send my Lord to the main objective, or else have to put up with the busywork of treking him across the map after I'm done killing everything. Allowing any unit to Seize/Arrive removes that particular annoyance. And there's also the Defeat [number] Enemies from Radiant Dawn, which can be considered as Rout-adjacent but without some of the problems of that objective, since you don't need to worry about slaughtering enemy medics or chasing down that one unit who ran halfway across the map to heal. I'd definitely be happy to see that one brought back as an objective.

Honestly, my favourite is to have a good variety. Defend objectives are cool, but they're cool because they tend to be rare.They change up the gameplay. If every map were a defend map, they'd get really old really fast. I picked rout, which is one of the least exciting objectives, but also the one that I think can see the most repetition without starting to seriously grate. Rout maps are the meat and potatoes of Fire Emblem, with other objectives being the gravy and the spices.

Thinking about this some more, I wonder if maybe the change in name means that flying classes are no longer going to have access to canto/canter/move again? If they've gone to the trouble to rename it, would they be renaming it to something that was specific to horses if the skill was also available to wyverns? Maybe they would, given that this is Fire Emblem and Fire Emblem naming conventions make no sense at all. But also maybe they wouldn't. It would not be a bad thing to see a minor nerf to fliers and a more definite niche to cavalry other than just "worse fliers". Thanks for the information!

The poor guy seems to be a bit lost. Did he take a left turn at Hatari when he was supposed to take a right and accidentally end up in Elibe? (I assume you mean Zephiel.) I don't really like Ashera in this role, because she's not really villainous per se, and her motivations don't seem to line up with what I would imagine from a Fell Dragon. Hard to say for sure without knowing more about Engage's story, but I'm not expecting for it to make sense for the villains to want to channel Order incarnate. But on the other hand, Ashera is the best choice as a dark mirror of Micaiah, so might have that going for her. And is one of the few female villains available, which does seem to be something that they are caring about. So, actually, I've changed my mind. I do like Ashera here after all.

I've seen a few people mention the "dream" interpretation here, and I'm not entirely convinced. While it certainly could be derived from Latin somnium (dream), it could also equally well be derived from Latin somnus (sleep). I'm mostly assuming that it's just named as the place where Alear has been sleeping for a thousand years, rather than having anything fancy to do with dreams.

Well, they've done two-coloured hair before. Peri had her pink and blue hair, and Constance had the weird ringlets that were blonde on the outside but blue on the inside. If they want to show that someone is special through the medium of hair colour, then nothing short of iridescent rainbow hair will suffice.

Interestingly, they did rename the General class in Three Houses (to Fortress Knight). It'll be interesting to see whether they stick with that change or if it ends up just being a Three Houses oddity. I think that part of my problem with Bolganone is that my brain always and forever wants to read it as Bolognese. At that point, there's no getting away from just seeming weird.

Oh, most of my favourites also have basically no chance. But in a world where my no-chance disliked characters get in, there'd be a reasonable chance that some of my no-chance liked characters would be there too.

Hmmm. Fair enough, if that's how you see things. I don't really look at it that way, though. I don't really see Time Rewind as a replacement for Phoenix Mode, so much as two features that explore vaguely similar design space. To me, saying that Turnwheel replaced Phoenix Mode would be sort of like saying that Brawling replaced Shuriken. Yeah, they're both weapon types, but I don't see them as in direct competition to each other. Both Phoenix Mode and Shuriken were things that they tried for one game, never became mainstays of the series, and then didn't bring back. I can't see why Phoenix Mode inherently couldn't exist alongside time rewind any more than Shuriken inherently couldn't exist alongside Brawling.