Topaz Light

So, I kinda feel like I've posted a big thing about a Fire Emblem fangame project idea before, but as I'm slowly fleshing out more and more just what I want to do with this, I felt I'd make a topic here to gauge interest and get feedback on some of these ideas. This project will be made in FEXNA when that comes out. If not, I'll have to find some other way to make it work. The world the game is set in is somewhat different from a lot of Fire Emblem games, in that it's actually a somewhat post-apocalyptic world. Technology a little ahead of what exists today (although still mostly fantastical in flavor) did exist in the past, but most of it- as well as the knowledge required to use, build, and repair it- was lost during a great war seven hundred years ago... It might be better to just post the little blurb I wrote about the world backstory. [spoiler=Probably not how it'll be written in-game but all the important stuff is there]Long ago, dragons ruled the land. With their vast knowledge and mighty bodies, they formed great civilizations and crafted enormous, advanced cities. While humankind was able to coexist peacefully with dragons for a time, it wasn’t long before relations between the two races began to foul. Humans grew envious and fearful of the dragons’ great power and advanced technology, while dragons came to view humankind as freeloaders; inferior in every way, and nothing but a drag on society. Perhaps inevitably, the tensions between the two peoples rose to a boiling point, and at last exploded into violence and war. Sorely outmatched and outgunned, it seemed at first that there was no hope for humankind. In what seemed to be no time at all, what had once been an organized military force had been reduced to scattered guerilla fighters and haggard, defeated refugees. At the moment when humanity’s light of hope was at its most dim, a young hero appeared, he and his band armed with blessed weapons and magic spells uniquely advantaged against humanity’s seemingly-indomitable adversaries. Even with such mighty tools at their disposal, humankind’s battle against the dragons was still a steep uphill climb, but miraculously, they were able to reach the top, standing toe to toe with dragons on the battlefield and turning the tables on their mighty oppressors. Smacked in their faces with the reality of their newfound disadvantage, and coming to understand the gravity of their sins, the leaders of the dragons commanded their forces to cease fire, and parleyed with humans in hopes of establishing a peaceful relationship between their two peoples. Due in no small part to the immense toll the war had taken on all involved parties, the dragons were successful in securing peace, and for several years, all was calm. Humans and dragons worked hand in hand- albeit hesitantly- to repair a world broken by the savagery of war. However, this burgeoning peace was not to last. While the majority of both humans and dragons were more than happy to put the terrors of war behind them and vow to henceforth settle their disagreements and conflicts of interest through more civilized venues, there was a vocal group of anti-dragon extremists among the humans who incited riots and skirmishes in attempts to rekindle the war and see their hated enemies wiped off the face of the land completely. Their opportunity came when the human leader who had accepted the dragons’ peace treaty passed away. The new leader of humankind aligned far closer to the extremists’ viewpoints, and ordered humanity’s forces to take up arms and attack the dragons. The comparatively-quick reproduction and physical maturation of humankind had blessed them with speedier recovery from the war’s terrors than the dragon combatants, and a sudden attack from a larger-than-anticipated force caught the dragons off-balance. Pushed further and further back, with no hope of winning against the brutal onslaught, the dragons turned and fled to a remote part of the continent, sealing themselves away. As for the great hero who had spearheaded the human war effort? It was said that he forsook his sword, and vanished without a word. As the years went by, the dragons, the war, and the heroes and villains of the darkest time the continent had yet known passed into myth and legend. The stark, broken shadows of the once-great civilization of the dragons that pierced the horizon served as the only reminders of that bygone era. In time, man rebuilt and spread his dominion across the land and onto the islands beyond. Seven long centuries have passed since those dark days ended. As for the present-day story, I don't have a whole lot of details down that I feel would be wise to reveal at this time (y'know, spoilers and all), but I've decided that the story will involve more player choices and branching routes than- to my knowledge- the series has had before. While the overall direction of the plot and the ending can't really be drastically changed, there are a lot of venues for the player to decide how they want to get to the ending. Additionally, I feel now would be a good time to bring up that I do plan to include a second generation in the game. However, it will definitely be along the lines of Genealogy of the Holy War's second generation, with a time skip to a party containing only child and otherwise new characters. The number of first generation characters who can potentially rejoin you will definitely be significantly more than Genealogy's one, but it will be some time before they start becoming recruitable. And yes, the plot is being written with this generation split in mind, so it will be meaningful and make sense in the story. Aaaand I guess now would be a good time for more excerpts from my project documents! Again, this is probably stuff I've posted somewhere before, buuuut it's going here too since it's still relevant: Inheritance: Each character has a child character associated with them, and if a character is married by the end of the first generation, then their child (and, of course, their spouse’s) will be recruitable in the second generation. Each child character also has a substitute, who will be recruitable in their place if the parent associated with the given child character does not marry during the first generation. Depending on who their fixed parent married, a child character’s equipment, stats, skills, appearance, and sometimes even starting class will be affected. Additionally, there will be intergenerational sidequests that must be started in the first generation but cannot be finished until the second. Each first-generation character, regardless of gender, has a child character attached to them. If they marry in the first generation, their child will then be recruitable in the second. The child character will inherit stats and skills from both of their parents, as well as the hair color of their non-fixed parent. In some cases, certain non-fixed parent choices can even affect the class of a child character. Parents will also pass down any items they have to a child who can use them, with priority given to the non-fixed child if both children are viable. In the rare cases that the parents can rejoin the party in the second generation, if that parent passed down their items, they will be given a new inventory in the second generation. Default inventories are also prepared for children who do not inherit any weapons. Item durability is fully restored upon reaching the second generation, and in the case that a unit still ends up with under 20 uses worth of weapons and magic in their inventory, they will be given an Iron weapon or basic tome or staff based on their class if they have room to carry it. And finally, here are some additional miscellaneous gameplay ideas I had, written sort of in the style of a game manual talking about them: Reclassing & Class Masters Masters of various classes exist, scattered throughout the world. If they are found and visited, they will teach their craft to the visitor, changing their class. Each master will only teach their class to one student from the player’s army, and each character can only learn from one master per playthrough. There may even be a few classes that can only be added to the player’s army by having a character learn that class from a master… Smithies & Forging During the game, you may run across Smithies. At Smithies, you can forge stronger weapons and tomes, as well as repair existing ones. You may either modify an existing weapon or tome in the visitor’s inventory, or create a new weapon or tome from scratch using a normal weapon as a base. Note that if you craft a new weapon or tome from scratch, you will have to pay for the new weapon in addition to the modifications. When repairing a weapon or tome, the cost is the same as purchasing back the number of uses lost. Note that some weapons may be incompatible with one or both of these features. After choosing the weapon or tome you want to modify, the following parameters can be adjusted, within limitations: Name, Might, Hit Rate, Critical Bonus, Weight, Weapon Rank, and Color. The greater the degree to which you modify each attribute, the more the modifications will cost. Name and Color can be modified for free, and Weapon Rank can be decreased by one rank for a steep fee. Arenas In an Arena, you can bet gold on your unit’s success in combat, for a chance to win back more than you bet if they succeed. Three options are available: Battle, Gauntlet, and High Stakes. (Note: In Casual mode, falling in any Arena battle leaves your unit with 1 HP rather than dead) Battle sends your unit up against a random opponent of roughly equal strength. You can press the B button to retreat from the fight if things aren’t looking good for your champion. Retreat, however, is considered the same as a loss, and you will not get your wager back. Victory earns you twice your wager back, for a net gain the same as the amount of money that you initially bet. Gauntlet allows your unit to challenge the Arena’s Gauntlet of Champions, a progression of eight successively stronger warriors. Each unit’s progress through the Gauntlet will be stored individually, and there are separate Gauntlets for Bow-specialized units, and units who are proficient in melee combat. A unit equally proficient in both melee and ranged combat may choose to challenge the opponent from either for each battle, but cannot go back and challenge the other occupant of a given rank once they have moved past it. Gauntlet wagers work the same way as Battle wagers. However, defeat in battle during a Gauntlet challenge does not result in death, instead leaving your unit with 1 HP. Perhaps some Champions of the Gauntlet would lend their swords to a warrior who could best them in combat…? High Stakes is similar to Battle, but the winnings are ten to one, and you cannot retreat from battle. A very risky proposition, but the payout is huge if you win! As a miscellaneous tidbit that doesn't really have anywhere else to go, I'd like to do something like FESNES-style animations, but with the art style/proportions of the GameBoy Advance games' battle sprites. This is really more of a "best case scenario"-type desire, and not something I necessarily think is likely to have happen, but I'll certainly be working towards it. EDIT 1: So the spoiler tags on the last two text dumps broke and only concealed the first "paragraph" of each bit of text, despite showing the whole thing as being inside the "Spoiler" box. Because this amounted to decreasing the text by only a couple lines worth and making the layout a tiny bit confusing, they're gone now. If anybody has any idea what the problem is and how to fix it, I'll put them back into spoiler tags, but until then, this is how they'll be. EDIT 2: I forgot when I was copy-pasting the "Concept" bit that it included massive spoilers for the first generation plot so that's gone now. But hey, at least the second generation mechanics and etc. are still there!

I like Kris the most since I played in Japanese which I can't really read so I can largely ignore the dialogue and pretend that Kris isn't a horrible spotlight-stealing, development-blocking Mary Sue In all seriousness, this

Yep! I've never gotten that far in it, unfortunately (it's on my to-do list, I swear!), but I've played it enough (and have a best friend who adores it enough) that I'm reasonably familiar with the setting and the story surrounding it. It's not really drastically different from what I had in mind? At least, in terms of the dichotomy between technology that exists in the world vs. technology that most people actually have access to... but the general world background and story was going to be sufficiently different, and I wasn't even thinking about Final Fantasy X when I was writing about it. If anything, the idea was based on Final Fantasies VI and VII introducing more technologically-advanced worlds to the series- which had previously been almost exclusively medieval-based in terms of settings- and actually making it work, and I was thinking that it would be kinda neat to see if something similar could be made to work with the Fire Emblem series. Hmm... I actually might go make a topic about it, to gauge interest in the idea, since it's definitely something I'm interested in making once/if FEXNA is released to the public...

This is actually my main gripe with the whole concept of the Avatar/My Unit as they're incorporated into Fire Emblem; for all narrative intents and purposes, they're a fixed, predefined character, and they're not even a good one. They're often called self-inserts, but the truth is that they're not; they're just as fixed and defined as any other character, except that you get to make a number of purely cosmetic decisions about them- along with, admittedly, a few decisions of actual gameplay consequence, like Asset, Flaw, Talent, and to a lesser extent, gender- that, while kinda nice, don't actually do anything to fix the fact that the character themself is not you, and oftentimes the notion that they represent you is kind of insulting considering how they act in certain situations. Being able to choose who MU supports and marries doesn't even really count at all, since that's barely more than you're able to do for any other character, and even then, the "barely" just refers to MU being able to support literally every other unit instead of just characters from a pre-chosen pool. I would actually be very interested in seeing a truly player-created protagonist in a Fire Emblem game if they actually committed to it and gave the player frequent dialogue options, as well as choices about how to proceed that actually went through and weren't just miraculously derailed back onto the fixed plot progression to avoid having to write a branching story. Unfortunately, I think the odds of Intelligent Systems actually doing this are very slim. Kris, Robin, and Corrin have all been "good enough" for most Fire Emblem fans so far in the customization/self-insert department with far less effort required to implement them, so any future Avatars/My Units we get are almost certainly going to be along those lines. As far as child characters go, I think it's likely that the series will continue to have them, considering their popularity. However, I can only hope that they'll start finding some sensible way to actually work them into the main plot instead of just shoehorning them in. In Genealogy of the Holy War, they worked well mainly because their existence, both as a mechanic and as a plot point, was a huge component of the game on a conceptual level, as can even be seen in the title. The game was built around them, at least to an extent, so they were very interesting there. Awakening gave the children a serviceable reason to be in the plot, even if they weren't nearly as crucial as in Genealogy. Fates, unfortunately, shoves any semblance of plot relevance child characters may have had out the window completely, and it's blatantly obvious that the only reason they're even in the game at all is in order to cash in on the popularity of the mechanic. I honestly don't mind child characters as a concept; the mechanic is actually really cool, and I love having a set of characters I can sorta customize indirectly via another really fun mechanic and narrative element, that being Support conversations. However, I am firmly of the stance that child characters should either be in the game because they have a good (or at least decent) reason to be present in the plot, or they shouldn't be in the game at all. This basically.

I generally tend to think of myself as fairly forgiving as far as doling out animosity towards fictional characters is concerned. Sure, I have plenty of characters I'm indifferent to or don't really care about all that much, but it generally takes a lot for me to actively dislike a character. That said, Jakob is honestly a bit too much of an asshole for me to really like him as a character. He does have some nice moments, but he has much more (from what I've read) that are squarely on the side of "deterring". It's a shame, since I think he's got a pretty cool design and- from what I've heard of it- voice, but... On another note, my two cents on Peri are that I don't... quite mind her character premise as much as I mind how characters tend to react to her. One of the reasons I like InigoLaslow's supports with her so much is because it actually touches on the fact that her homicidal tendencies are terrible and Laslow seems to be trying to take a tactful approach to break her of those habits. This is leaps and bounds better than her support with MaMU where he literally just gives up and decides to hire durable servants so she can whale on them without killing them, the implication leaning far more towards "so we don't have to constantly replace them" rather than "so people don't get murdered for no good reason". [spoiler=Spoilery stuff]I haven't even gotten to the point of the reveal yet in my own playthrough, but even just conceptually, Slime Garon has got to be one of the single worst plot twists Intelligent Systems has ever let slip into one of their games. They took a concept that could have made for a very compelling and tragic antagonist and contrived (which, by the way, is not a compliment, Kobayashi!) a twist about him that made him infinitely worse. Someone else already expressed similar thoughts to my own, so I'll just say that I echo the sentiment that Garon would have been so much more interesting if he had actual character virtues and genuinely loved his nation and all of his children, but simply saw no other way to get Nohr the resources it needs. But alas, why have that when you could have Slime Garon?! Every self-respecting RPG has slimes, after all. I will say, though, that from what I've read of his backstory, I like the idea of Anankos as a character, as well as what I will be assuming is a nod to Archanea's mythology regarding Dragons, but from what I've heard I don't have a whole lot of faith that he was implemented appreciably better than Garon. Oh well. EDIT: OOPS FIXED THE SPOILER TAG I'M SO SORRY TO ANYONE WHO WAS UNFORTUNATE ENOUGH TO READ THIS POST BEFOREHAND

There was Chon'sin in Awakening, but honestly it only barely counts, since you only get like three characters from it, and two of those characters are pretty much the entirety of its relevance to the plot. Anyways, if anything is racist about Fire Emblem, it's the fact that you can count the number of characters who are canonically dark-skinned on both hands (compare to the literal hundreds of light-skinned characters in the series). If anything, the East vs. West dichotomy in Fates was to further distinguish the two nations from each other and reinforce the duality. I mean, I wish the morality was more gray vs. grey, too, but more because the advertising played up the difficult nature of the choice than anything, so it would've been nice if that were better represented in the relationship between the two nations. There have been tons of both good and evil Western-based nations in past Fire Emblem games, and Nohr is probably one of the most sympathetic of the evil ones. I'm 100% certain it's not a "Japanese supremacy" thing.

Ahh, thanks for the explanation! It kinda makes me wonder, though; is there any reason they couldn't just use the same name label for him both times? Or was using different labels necessary to get the different descriptions/base stats/etc.?

Holy crap, that's a lot of names! Thanks a bunch! Kinda interesting that they're all labeled "MID_BOSS" (unless "MID" stands for something else), but I guess it makes sense, since technically they're the "bosses" of the battles you would be encountering them in.

There are, actually! Depending on how often you StreetPass people, though, they might be pretty obscure, since they're only in the instance that you StreetPass only people who don't have any Awakening StreetPass data on their 3DS, which causes the game to randomly generate a StreetPass team called "Outrealm Order", as well as the Avatar character that leads it, name and all. And gosh, thanks a bunch! Let me just pull up some names from my Logbook... [spoiler=Long]Sulius Styrille Netai C'drache Larsay Farrod Ran'sul Tenris Newolf Yhony Sulen Eldavia Rysinray Memora Cetula Arund Denine Aleegha Gaim Ath'kali Verid Neubee Zeuve Lucer Maybyl Charan Thronce Cosir Klotz Rynbur Issime Morvese Keckaw Pohem Xensa Okimi Stross I hope that's not an overwhelming amount of names! Thanks again for helping me out with this!

Does anybody know where I might find a dump of the game's name index? I kind of want a list of all the possible names that can be given to the randomized Outrealm Order avatars. I know that they're drawn from a list and not randomly created using a generator, since I have had many instances of getting the exact same name multiple times, but there doesn't seem to be a list anywhere. Which makes sense, I suppose, considering it's a niche interest, but it's still something I have an interest in acquiring, if possible.

Oh. Oops. That's disappointing.

There's a male version of Villager? Huh! Didn't think they'd bother, after Awakening didn't bother with a female version. That's pretty rad. Thanks!

Can Mozu pass down Villager to a daughter like Donnel could to a son?

Also, the style is from the 3DS Pokemon games. Little face icons in that style are used as players' "avatars" for online features, and you can choose to either use the face of your own character or of another character or generic trainer class from the game.

I actually had an idea for a Fire Emblem game where technology a little above modern-day levels existed in the past, but was mostly lost in the story's equivalent of Anri's fight against Medeus, the Scouring, etc., and so there would be some high-tech elements, but they would be very rare, and the game's equipment and etc. would still be mostly medieval-type stuff. More related to the topic at hand, I'm not entirely sure how I'd feel about it. It'd depend a lot on how it was executed, and the direction they went with it; whether they were taking it seriously or making it a joke spinoff. The premise has potential, but I don't wanna greenlight or veto the concept without having any instances of it actually being done to base my opinion off of.

You could always go Samurai for Master of Arms, granting you the ability to wield Lances on foot like Ephraim without sacrificing the ability to use Yato. Not to mention axes as an added bonus.

I just thought it was funny because yes. Yes MU's talent is indeed Dragon. On another note, has anyone tested to see whether or not the Cipher codes to recruit Minerva still work in the North American version of the game? It'd be interesting if you could still recruit her, but considering what was done to the link functionality with Binding Blade in Path of Radiance, I'd imagine that it's not exactly likely. However, it is something obscure enough, especially in Western territories, that I could see them overlooking it or just not bothering to actually disable it.

I did this, as well, to make her viable, since she was very weak, even after spoonfeeding her kills in Paralogue. I gotta say, it helped her a lot. Her high defense and resistance meant that she was a serviceable tank despite abysmal HP compared to Effie. The Dread Fighter's weapon availability also means that a character of that class gains full control over the weapon triangle, much like Masters of Arms. Access to Hidden Weapons allows Mozu to serve as a debuffer, as well as giving her access to 1-2 range attacks that can double, but unfortunately at the cost of having good attack power when invoking the weapon triangle advantage over Swords and Magic.

I dunno that I've played all that many games that are obscure enough to qualify- even back when I got into the series, Mother probably had enough of a following to not quite count, and the recent VC releases are only making it more well-known due to cheap and easy accessibility- but I've been playing Live-A-Live recently, and while it does have its problems, the unique premise and fun battle system make it worth a shot, at least.

Oh wow, this is actually a pretty stellar localization job! Even if it's kinda silly and not really all that deep, it was still a pretty cute set of supports. Definitely a step up from the original version, or what I've heard of it, at least.

How about S for a romantic fourth Support conversation, and A+ for a platonic fourth? Fates already has the A+ Support rank, but sadly I'm pretty sure nobody has any conversations to go with it. As for my own unpopular opinions... I don't know if this is as much an unpopular opinion as it is just an unpopular playstyle, but I still don't use Jagens even after acknowledging their usefulness. The reason is because I've gotten used to playing the games without using them, and have come to find it more fun to do so, since, even setting aside the whole low growth rates and "EXP thief" complaints, Jagens kinda feel a bit like Get Out of Jail Free cards, so it's just more fun for me to work my way through situations without resorting to using them. (And besides, it's not like you actually need them for most of the game + difficulty level combinations I generally play, anyway) While I dislike the costume design of the 3DS Fire Emblem games, I find Kozaki's art style itself to be pretty palatable and I honestly don't really mind it at all. Just, whoever's been doing the outfit designs needs to be replaced. I honestly think the idea of a Fire Emblem game with a higher level of technological development present in its setting could potentially be very cool if done right, although I wouldn't go so far as to suggest that Fire Emblem go the route of Final Fantasy and move itself as a whole towards more modern/futuristic settings. I just think it might be fun to explore how such a shift in setting would mix with the iconic Fire Emblem elements. I feel that Awakening's biggest assets were its presentation and user interface elements, as well as the general feel of the gameplay, and most everything else was mediocre at best. I do think some of the characters are decent enough and I even really like a few of them, but my main problem is that the extremely bare-bones worldbuilding gives them minimal context in which to exist in the grand scheme of their setting, and characters in a world are almost by default far more interesting than characters in a vacuum. I honestly don't even see the different routes in Fates as separate games, and as such, I'm going to be getting all three, since I wouldn't feel like I was getting the complete game if I didn't. I thought Fire Emblem 7's plot was decent enough. After playing through it again, it's not really stellar by any means, but it's certainly not as bad as that one person's rant from a while back accused it of being. Marth-era Archanea might actually be my favorite Fire Emblem continent. It's just a shame it never really got a good game in it that really fleshed out and gave depth to the cast in the game itself. I don't mind child characters as a mechanic at all, but I really think that they should only be used in games that actually give them plot significance. I'd love to see another game like Genealogy that's split into two parts, with the second half focusing on the second generation in such a way as that you're effectively forced to use them, but that's probably pretty unlikely. Thracia 776 doesn't really look that interesting to me. I mean, I'm still going to play the game at some point, probably, but it just doesn't really endear itself to me hardly at all. Maybe Project Naga will change that. Let's hope. I've heard a few people expressing that they want them removed, but I actually like the random elements to Fire Emblem, like growth rates, how hits/misses and critical hits are determined, etc. The amount of luck involved has never really felt egregious to me, personally, and I feel like randomly-determined stat growth based on different predispositions for each character is an interesting way to grant individuality to each playthrough without taking individuality away from the characters. I much prefer the way Skills worked in the Jugdral and Tellius games, being rarer and more unique to the characters that had them, rather than something that every party member has in abundance, like in Awakening. I think the former was a really interesting way to add more distinguishing features between units. I really don't get what's so great about the idea of a grimdark Game of Thrones-esque Fire Emblem game that so many people seem to want/try to make as ROM hacks... Maybe it's because I find it deterring when things are too dark, and (probably at least partially because of that) I've never really gotten into Game of Thrones, but I just don't see the appeal, frankly. I like the idea of reclassing as a mechanic, but I don't feel it's been done quite right yet. I'd like to either see it mostly go back to how it worked in FEDS, only with reclass sets determined by character like in the 3DS games, or have it change to something that's a commitment- maybe even entirely irreversible- and that can only be done sparingly. Also... I think Support point gain worked best in Awakening. In regards to bonuses, I had the idea that basically each parameter that Supports affect would only be able to be boosted by four Support ranks' worth at one time, no matter how many nearby Support partners had affinities that boosted that stat. That could still get pretty powerful, but at least you wouldn't be able to load up on same-stat-boosting Support partners and get, like, 120% innate Critical and 200%+ Avoid or anything.

Ehhh, pretty spoiled. I know a lot of major plot points (not an any sort of extensive detail, but like, the general idea of a lot of them) in Birthright and Conquest, and I'm pretty sure I know generally most of the reasons "Revelations" got its English namesake. I mean, I don't care about spoilers that much, usually. I know this is pretty weird, but I kinda like being spoiled since it actually gets me more excited for the given thing... Sorta like seeing a bunch of photos of a place you're going on vacation to, and maybe reading some reviews of restaurants and attractions and stuff there. It also lets me know how to avoid things like preventable storyline character deaths and etc... [spoiler=Mild Fates Spoilers](Which turned out to actually be a valid concern with this game!) ...since I'm a perfectionist who can't stand to miss sidequests (at least, most of them) or allow preventable character deaths to occur, even if it's my first time playing a given game.

I've been playing through FE1 recently, and honestly I've found it pretty palatable. Yeah, it's archaic and has a lot of NESisms to it, but it's never too hard, and the interface, while a tad clunky, is still perfectly manageable. I've been having a good time with it, although I suppose I can see where it wouldn't have a lot to offer to most fans of the series who started with subsequent games. I've always had a bit of a soft spot for old NES games, though, so I enjoy it quite a bit.

I was not aware of this; this makes me like the "Imhullu" localization a lot more actually. Originally I thought it and Maph were both just nonsense words made up to sound all scary and arcane and magicky, but the reality is actually pretty neat! I learned something today.

Aqua to Azura I don't like, purely because "azure" has more sky connotations than water, and it's my understanding that the (admittedly obvious) water connotations of Aqua were very much intentional and significant. I don't actually mind Azura as a name, I just think it was a kind of negligent localization decision. Benoit to Benny is kinda strange. They should've either kept it as Benoit or had his name be Benjamin or Benedict and had people just call him Benny, similarly to Donnel/Donny. The "ou" to "o" thing isn't really a big deal considering the new audience, but some of the Hoshido name changes are just kinda weird. Just "Kaze" by itself sounds like some twelve-year-old's Naruto OC, and "Subaki" reeks of "Americans don't understand the whole 'ts' thing" despite "tsunami" being a well-known word over here. Hayato is alright I guess, if a tad pointless, but Kaden and Reina are straight-up changing Japanese names of characters from a Japan-based nation into Western names for no real discernible reason. "Caeldori"? Really? Rhajat is a real name and retains the theme of the cameo kids' names so I can't really complain. I don't mind it, personally. Laslow doesn't actually bother me all that much. Selena... I get what they were going for, but like with the next character, the overlap with a previous Fire Emblem character's name is not appreciated. Harold to Arthur was a bad choice; in addition to the the reasons others have mentioned, "Harold" just fits a hammy, overtheatrical hero-type better than "Arthur" does. Marx to Xander, ehhh, don't really care that much. I probably would've gone with something that Max could be short for (Maximilian, Maximus, etc.) but it works. Leo is really weird to me because I'd think that usually to make a name sound royal you'd go with something kinda complex, but they just made it simpler. Leonid or Leonidas or or something would've worked better for a prince, I feel.