Onestep

Maeda probably explored and chilled out a bit, along with playing on Hard Mode. Reviewers generally have to rush through games to get content out, then can double back and go into more detail if the game becomes a big hit. The reviewer also admitted he didn't save on big choices, and so probably missed out on several maps/alternative storylines that Maeda might be including in his 'time to fully complete one route' hour count. That, or missed Paralogues.

Would make a really cool intro slide, while the narrator describes the myths of Fodlan.

Relatively easy to miss, but quite interesting. They seem to be depicting the events surrounding the War of Heroes, though the metaphors are interesting.

Hmmm. This diagram seems to depict the Divines, following or reaching out for the Goddess. That clearly Indech on the top left, and I believe that's Macuil and Cichol on the bottom left. Which suggests that bottom right is Cethlenn. Though it's vague enough that any of the three could be any other. Interestingly, Seiros in the middle once again has their face obscured. I'm not entirely sure what the symbology of the deer is meant to be, but their motif seems to be duality. They are shined upon by both the sun and moon, the mother and father deer have contrasting colours and the fawn seems to be a mixture of both colours.

Maybe once we've got the game entirely figured out and optimal strats planned it'll be easy to grab 3+ characters. For now, unless you're playing on normal, seems unlikely you'll get too many.

I don't know. Wise, mature lady and father of main character both have pretty atrocious records for survival.

Possibly. Personally, I'm a fan of it being difficult. I'd imagine on Normal difficulty, you can just grind to recruiting everyone possible anyway.

Oh, that makes sense. It seems that he went with the Black Eagles on his first playthrough, and the Golden Deer on his second. The fact that he says the game 'tells you which choices majorly affect the plot' and says that he should have saved at these, would seem to confirm the leak that Black Eagles at least have two routes.

Really interesting. Sounds like there are some major choices in the plot APART from picking a House. I wish I knew what house he picked. There's a bunch of different screenshots that tell contradictory stories, like the Eagles team on a field map, but also Petra with a Recruit option. He also says that his new House are less uptight than his old bunch, which at least rules out Golden Deer, who seem like the least uptight bunch possible. I suspect Black Eagles though, purely because the leak suggested that they have at least two routes. On a side note, the fact that the guy could only recruit one other student makes it sound like that really isn't easy. Perhaps for every student you recruit, the stats required to recruit another go up, as a kind of soft lock mechanism?

Ah, really. My misunderstanding. My presumption was that they were affecting Byleth's stats. Actually, looking through it, Byleth has all the makings of the Oifey-archetype. He'll probably have decent base stats, he'll have a powerful weapon and he'll have solid growths as well. He'll be slightly more limited in how he can grow initially than most of the cast, but he gains extra XP to keep him at a high level, and that, combined with his weapon and solid stats, will keep him strong throughout the game.

This game's tuition system seems remarkably in-depth. My suspicion right now is that the best approach will be using non-time spending means to quickly level up Professor XP (sneaking into people's rooms to read their diaries etc etc), with some early seminars, but eventually spending most of the weekend using faculty training. But Motivation and Supports could completely up-end that, if you need to spend a time slot or two taking people out for tea. Actually, scratch that. I completely forgot about the Divine Statues. Pumping Renown into them is probably intended to be one of the main means the player has of keeping up with student XP gain.

We'll probably start seeing leaks a day or two after the Famitsu release as well.

Gambits, son. They do bullshit in response to trailer needs.

I might be way behind the times here, but do crits deal x4 damage now? Because that's pretty huge if it is the case. I was sure it was still x3.

I think Tellius had limited control of that with the Provoke/Shade. And Stillness.

It's just memes, coupled with people taking potshots at their perceptions of who'd be a Bernadetta fan. Happens every game. See Tharja, Camilla, Peri etc etc. Though Bernadetta isn't psychotic at least.

Dimitri sounds like an absolute nerd. It's great.

I think the time investment towards Riding will be fairly generous actually. Assuming that you gain Riding experience for using a class in combat, it should be a fairly natural progression, once you get past the first hurdle of getting a unit onto a mount. They might fall slightly behind dedicated foot combatants, but I don't see it being a huge issue. Class abilities look interesting. It looks like the range on Archers might get absolutely huge if they follow that path (assuming there is a longbow equivalent) to the end. Swordmasters getting Swordfaire is good, but I'm not sold on Sword Critical vs Vantage, particularly if Byleth has a life drain abiity.

Hard Classic, almost certainly.

Got it pre-ordered, got 8 days off to play it to death.

I, for one, am looking forward to gorging myself on every leak I can find.

So far, the Lords prove to be the most popular in general (not surprising), with one major exception. Marianne has actually surpassed both Dimitri and Claude, and is only a few off of Edelgard. Really not that surprised at this, she's one of my favourite characters too.

Levelling Faith and Reason seems to unlock spells. Byleth learns Fire at Reason D, I believe, for example. Now this is lovely for a Magic-user, but if you intend to make Byleth a bruiser (and the game encourages that, what with his prf sword), then it's essentially wasted. Perhaps there are Classes beyond Advanced that are true Hybrids, but that's a long wait, and would require awkward class jumping to have stats viable for it by the time you arrive there. And I fully believe that Magic-users won't have much use for melee weapons, especially once they get rolling. But the option is still there, unlike physical units.

Yes, but I'm assuming that classes have different stats growths, or that other choices affects growths. At best, levelling primarily in say, Mercenary/Hero, then swapping over to Mage so you can use Magic along with your developed sword skills, is a very awkward way of doing things. Especially since you could only level your Reason/Faith skill through training at school, rather than on the battlefield. Comparatively, it's muche easier for mages to train an off-weapon than it is for non-mages to train some off-magic.

I see. Well, that's deeply unfortunate, since it takes Magic from 'Something worth investing in, even if you don't intend to focus on it' to 'Only worth investing in if you absolutely focus on it'. It kind of makes recruiting Magic-based characters with Byleth a lot harder, since unless you're planning on having Byleth be a mage, any magic investment will be a waste, at least for the visible tiers. What's the point of levelling Reason and learning Fire and so on, if you can't use it outside of a selection of classes?