NeonZ

I doubt it. Fire Emblem is closer to Dynasty Warriors, where you want a roster as large as possible, which is why we ended up with clones in the first place. Characters can use the same weapon types and have different movesets here (see Chrom vs Marth for example - both sword wielding lords and yet aren't clones). They can just create more unique movesets for the next game. They aren't necessarily tied to weapon assignment. That's kind of the issue though. You can't just apply the pattern they choose for HWs here and expect the same reaction. The three game focus there wasn't received with nearly as much negativity as the three game focus here, since Zelda has more generic elements and characters running through all games.

If anything this interview shows that IS should have had more control over the roster. No way we'd have ended up with something as wasteful as all 8 royals taking up space for no reason rather than more popular characters. It's clear now these odd choices were mostly Koei's fault and we'd have gotten a better roster if IS had just fully controlled it.

They had HD assets for the characters and new movesets from the 3DS version too since they were added to the Wii U game. It was the stages and new Adventure maps from HWLs which were missing.

Nah, it significantly decreases their chances I'd say. Although Garon is still a possibility, we wouldn't get Iago fighting directly before Hans. But Garon's chances also decrease since at this point we haven't seen multiple villains from the same game.

They'd still need multiple unique specials in order to become playable characters even if the basic moveset is reused. There's also the issue of promoted models (although I hope they aren't kept from being playable due to something like that. It'd be better to ignore model changes with promotion than to cut them altogether).

The NPCs in Berserker Warriors generally had exclusive but limited movesets and some even low quality models (like an npc Anna that showed up in the stream). Owain at least seems to have a standard moveset based on Ryoma's and model on par with the playable cast for the intermission scenes. This seems closer to a Hyrule Warriors situation to me, where the characters are either npc just for the main story but can be unlocked in the extra mode or will be added later through updates.

It could be Falchion replicas like what happens when Marth or Lucina handle a weapon store in Fates.

Hyrule Warriors' 1st season pass cost 3000 yen, exactly like this season pass. Any changes are just due to dollar vs yen variation. So, expect similar amount of content. Hyrule Warriors had 3 new movesets/weapons 3 new characters 4 new costumes 3 new Adventure maps Playable Ganon/Giant Cucco. It's not clear at this point how History maps compare to Adventure maps length-wise, but most likely they're smaller, so we might get more. 6 unique characters also seem like a fair amount - 2 per game. Although we could get more if we get clones rather than costumes, but I'm not convinced Koei would sell clones at this point. After the game's base line up opening space to them, I think it'd be a mistake to go with only unique characters, but I could see it happening as another one of their questionable choices.

Yep, just look at the price for costume DLC. Even if they're clones, they'll still need new models and voice recordings, alongside a couple of new animations for Musou and victory/intro (and the Classic Link/Zelda/Ganondorf DLC ended up cheaper than usual since they were mostly made with reused models and textures from other games, with only the face being updated to fit with HWs animations).

I don't think they ever pushed Corrin = Robin very strongly. There was the Rhajat support that indicated that they're reincarnations, but that's it. I don't remember the Awakening trio and Amiibo Lucina ever comparing Corrin to Robin. The Mark = Robin thing back in the Awakening DLC was pretty different though. It wasn't even just saying that they have a similar aura or remind them of someone else (like the Robin/Kris comparisons), it was outright stating that they're the same person.

Azura was initially pushed like Lucina, but she wasn't nearly as popular, especially not in Japan where she didn't even make it to top 4 for female Fates characters. She did better in the worldwide Heroes poll though, but still bellow Corrin and Camilla (also Tharja, Lucina and Cordelia from Awakening). At this point, female Corrin has pretty much taken over the "main heroine" spot from Fates as far as marketing goes too. I don't think it'd have worked anyway. The whole concept of #TMS's Mirages would have meant Lucina would be pretty much unrecognizable design-wise. They also made them amnesiac, so references to previous events were very rare too.

Hyrule Warriors did hide Link's Great Fairy moveset from pre-release marketing, so I don't think more playable characters are impossible. However, if they haven't been marketed, I don't think they'd be people who could be big selling points (like Tharja). It could happen due to a external threat from another continent, yes. It doesn't need to be an existing one, although they could make it Jugdral during a different time period too. Maybe combined with an internal conspiracy. It shouldn't be hard to justify some stupid nobles envying the entire continent suddenly being united under a previously rather small kingdom, then conspiring with a foreign power to attempt a coup.

The Marth situation could be solved if IS made an original title that were a direct sequel to FE3 (to avoid making yet another remake), but if something like that doesn't happen it does create a fairly big split, since his games are seen as irrelevant in the West, due to the only localized one being Shadow Dragon, which was problematic in multiple ways. Maybe they could make it a FE3-type package again, with a new game and another remake of FE1 using recycled assets from the new game (so, missing some content from the original) in the new engine in the same package.

Eh? They said they cut Azura because Fates already had too many characters. That's definitely not the case for Shadow Dragon. Fates has 9(10) characters, significantly more than even Awakening at this point. Regarding cutting the younger sisters for her, Azura would need an unique moveset though, she wouldn't be able to be a clone.

Why would they go out of their way to remove Navarre from a video and never feature any stages with him as an enemy though? They'd probably just have done a low key reveal like Validar's.

Laguz had optional Laguz Stones to transform instantly even without filling the timer. So, lumping them into the stone weapon category wouldn't be that odd. I doubt any will be here though. Even if there's a Path of Radiance DLC pack, none of the Laguz were very popular.

They can throw Robin to stand in for Mark (considering the Awakening conversation where she claims that the avatar is Mark) and give someone for her to interact with, and then play out a summarized version of her tutorial story with generics replacing the named villains (or even some unique NPCs if she isn't as last minute as she looks at this point). Deal with brigands, deal with assassins, learn about her identity, go to her kingdom and retake it. As I understand it, troop deployment isn't really limited based on the story aside from specific cases, so you'll just use other units of your choice to fill in the rest of the army.

If you look at the image with its biggest size (using the orig command), there's a darker circle near that lance's tip that doesn't match the diamond shape of Azura's. And I don't think that bold bit works either. The visible white part is directly under the yellow part of the lance, but that doesn't match Azura's pose. The only part high enough to be that one would be her arm's white gloves, but it shouldn't be stretched like that. If you mean the 2nd white detail bellow, that's from a separate card. Regarding changing poses, they've only changed Takumi's so far, and that has a pretty obvious reason (to give focus to his front, rather than backside). There would be no point in mirroring Azura.

Why would Azura be mirrored though? Caeda's official artwork would match that pose. http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/fireemblem/images/c/cc/Caeda_(Shadow_Dragon_Artwork).png/revision/latest?cb=20130506004734 And they have might changed the tip of her lance to remove that rope, since it'd likely just cause a lot of clipping. The first white bit bellow the lance matches the position and color of her elbow too.

The biggest oddity is that Navarre by design carries two swords, just like the Lyn added here - but Lyn never wielded two swords before. She had one sword before promotion and sword and bow afterwards. Ryoma's moveset in Warriors only has one sword, creating a second energy blade for some of his special attacks, but his standard ones all seem to use a single blade and most are two handed. We haven't seen Lyn's standard attacks though, but I'd be surprised if she doesn't use that 2nd blade at all, considering how it's an addition to her design that (aside from the shorts), follows her FE7 artwork very faithfully. It seems unlikely they'd give her that extra sword unless she's using a moveset that actually requires two blades.

Rewatching the video, there was nothing. I thought he had said something specifically acknowledging Validar in the stream live, but I can't find it now. Sorry.

Hm... I guess I can see what's the issue now. The videos are from different versions of the game. Chrom had both an overhead spinning slash with two hands and a "throw sword, jump and come down with one hand", two different attacks, but the later doesn't have the camera following it and time slowing down while he does the Awakening pose. But, looking at other videos, that's just because it's from the E3 version of the game, while Lucina's video is newer. So, I guess that explains the different effects for some of their specials too, like the odd yellow aura around some of Chrom's strikes that don't appear in the Lucina video... That map itself confirms he's appearing multiple times. Robin is working for Validar and even had a quote about him, so that battle is clearly not from that one History map we saw before.

Hm... looking at more videos, I've found Chrom doing the same upwards slash with a blue trail that Lucina did. I can't find a video of Lucina doing the flaming one though. I won't bother posting screens here because I'm looking at youtube videos though, rather than downloads and single screenshots ended up really blurry. I guess it's hard to say what are exclusive attacks without even knowing their full moveset inputs. That's probably not story mode, considering Robin fighting for Validar. There was presumably a preset team on the map already and the player's team is just added there, even if it results in duplicates.

That's pretty much what seems to be going on at this point, especially looking at Lucina compared to Sakura (For example, even when both Lucina and Chrom do an upwards thrust with the same motion, one uses flame effects while the other has blue electricity, but then Sakura is straight up reusing wind attack effects from Takumi). At this point, it just seems like those two characters were low priority. I'm not saying you should be thankful, just that it just seems to be what they've done.

The only reason Sakura (and Hinoka) are even in the game is due to the "4 royals" mirror set up though. Going by either the Heroes poll or the Japanese Fates one you'd get Azura and Oboro or Felicia before them. So, it's not that surprising if they're low priority characters. Huh. I hadn't looked at them that closely before. They're closer than I thought from watching them individually. They have different effects for the attacks, and some attacks have different animations, but are still very similar (Chrom has a wannabe PoR Aether, and Lucina has a very similar attack, but falls in a different pose, although the actual effect of both attacks seems to be the same). Still, we know Lucina has some attack with a bow that wasn't shown there.