Topaz Light

The Super Soldier, you mean? I sincerely doubt that's actually a different class. I think the character data used for the enemy has absurdly massive cap modifiers and that's why the caps on that enemy are so high. The idea is that the character will be designed to be essentially as good as the Soldier class as it exists in Awakening can be made to be. Because I'm pretty sure that only the five equipped skills get transferred over when StreetPassing, I don't want to use up a slot on something the usefulness of which is transient (Aptitude, Underdog, Discipline, etc.), because once the character is all maxed-out it'll be effectively an empty skill slot. And yeah, I kinda figured skills would essentially work on a "has this skill/doesn't have this skill" binary, so it's pointless to stack them. Anyway, thanks to everyone for the advice! It's really been quite helpful!

So, Awakening save editing is becoming more and more of a thing now, with an already-pretty-cool easy-to-use save editor currently underway, and this allows me to do something that I've wanted to do for a while now. And that is, distribute Avatars of unusual classes via StreetPass. The main one I had in mind was to make one that was a Soldier, since most other unique classes either don't interest me much (Revenants/Entombed look weird but are functionally just about as generic as you can get, and cheating the final boss class- in this case, Grima- onto one's team is rather overdone) or actually are obtainable, just not for the Avatar (Lord, Dancer, Villager, Manakete, Taguel, Lodestar). Besides, I've always had a soft spot for the Soldier class for no readily-explicable reason. I guess they're kind of a neat novelty to me in most games. Anyway, none of this is really the main point of this inquiry. What I wanted to ask for was advice on making a decent Asset+Flaw and Skill build for a Soldier-class character. Soldiers have only 5 movement, but I'm willing to bump it up to 7 with Boots, since this file will be created solely to facilitate this character being spread via StreetPass. The Pair Up bonuses attributed to the Soldier class are Strength, Luck, and Defense +2, and like most single-tier classes, Soldiers' levels cap at 30 rather than 20, although this doesn't really matter since the character can be Second Sealed back down to a level 1 Soldier from level 30. I have verified all three of these tidbits in-game myself, so they're accurate. For those who don't want to head over to the main site to look it up, the Soldier class's caps are: HP: 80 Luck: 45 Everything else: 30 ...Which are actually pretty respectable for a tier-1 class, but definitely hold the character back from competing with tier-2 units, unless they have Limit Breaker while the tier-2 units don't. Note that I'm not looking for a build that will make the character an asset for taking down Apotheosis or anything; I'm well aware there's really no way to do that short of loading them up with Lunatic+ skills, which I don't want to do. I just want something that will allow the character to hold their own and be reasonably useful for the main plot on Normal and Hard difficulty, as well as DLC chapters up to the difficulty level of, say, Smash Brethren. I'm completely aware that a playable Soldier, with no modifications to the class as it is in the game currently, will ultimately amount to nothing more than a novelty in most players' rosters, but I do want to give them an Asset+Flaw and Skill setup that will make them better than just a "vanilla" or haphazardly-set-up Soldier. As for Skills, I'm using a save file editor, so they can have quite literally any combination of five skills that can be conceived, including DLC and Lunatic+ skills... even multiples of the same skill, although I'm not sure why you'd do that. My only real "rule" here is that I don't want to give them Lunatic+ skills, more because it apparently will prevent them from being sent via StreetPass (an Outrealm Order will get sent instead; "impossible" classes don't trip this for some reason apparently) than anything else. Aside from "No Lunatic+ skills", though, anything goes in terms of Skill setups. I realize this is a strange goal and request, but I'm not really super versed on what does and doesn't constitute a good or useful skill setup, and since a lot of people here are, I thought it would be a good place to ask for help.

Before reading this, please understand that I've little to no familiarity with Fates' gameplay- at least, in regards to how it differs from previous installments- and so I can't speak to that one way or the other. Nothing I say here is directed at the gameplay elements of the game. I was super hyped for a long time. Seeing the initial trailer for the game in a Nintendo Direct kinda gave me the same feeling as waking up on my birthday, or on Christmas, or really the morning of any celebration that involves present-giving. Unfortunately, the game seems to have taken after and "built upon" Awakening in some of the worst possible ways... at least, for my personal tastes. I haven't seen much evidence to suggest that the writing quality of the main plot is too far above Awakening's in any route, the characters seem to still be largely static and "gimmick-centered" in the same way as Awakening's were, and I don't really have a lot to say about the... ahem... gratuitous... fanservice elements that hasn't already been said, but any negative sentiment towards them you can think of, I probably share. Honestly, the game in a lot of ways doesn't feel like Fire Emblem to me... or at least, it seems to have lost a lot of what I personally like about the series. I'm not sure if I'd go so far as to deliberately not buy it out of spite, but I am seriously having second thoughts about whether or not it would actually be worth the ~$80.00~ USD for the full package. If you're looking forward to the game and think it looks fun, then more power to you, and I hope you have a great time with it! I'm just starting to think that maybe it's really not my cup of tea.

Does anyone know yet how or where reclass sets are stored? I want to look into creating an MU with a custom reclass set that could be retained through StreetPass if possible, but I don't know how feasible that would be. Just getting for myself and having it maybe be retained within my copy of the game would be enough, though.

I can only hope this means they're doing away with the "story split across multiple versions" BS and that the extra time being taken is partly for them to cram all the content (and prospective content, to include the alleged third story route that's coming later) onto one cartridge, but I won't necessarily get my hopes up.

I actually made a list, hang on... My Unit/Avatar: Kamui Blond Paladin: Marx Purple-Haired Nohrian Woman: Camilla Lobster Swordmaster: Ryouma Redheaded Pegasus Knight: Hinoka Red-Haired Healer Girl: Sakura Sumia-esque Myrmidon(?): Kazahana Nohrian Emperor: Garrone Hoshidan Redhead with Ponytail: Tsubaki Red-Haired Man w/ Face Mask: Saizou Purple-Haired Woman w/ Gold Headpieces: Orochi Masked Monster: Nosferatu (watch this one get changed in localization) Mentioned by Orochi: Takumi Admittedly this has some names that were already known on it but they're included anyway for the sake of completion.

Both, of course. That's what New Game+/multiple playthroughs are for. Also, if there is really a third option, considering the game is centered around this conflict, I doubt they'd just tell us about the third alternative before it was even released. If present, it could even be a subsequent playthrough bonus like recruiting Pelleas. I'm just really hoping this will be more complex and interesting than just a normal "good" option and a 3edgy5me "evil" option. They did mention in passing that you'd be trying to reform Nohr from the inside, so hopefully that means that siding with Nohr won't just be a standard-issue "evil route".

I pretty much agree with the sentiment of being okay with just about any method so long as it makes sense in-universe as to why it would affect the route you take. As far as, like... forewarning? as to which factors will affect the route split, and how... I think it really depends on the context of the route split. Ideally it'd be foreshadowed in some way, or hinted at, but I think that, unless it's supposed to be a simple choice or something of the like, simply outright telling the player straight-up exactly what to do to get each route is kinda no fun. Basically, they should hint that a route split will take place, and hint at what to do to unlock each path, but let the player put the pieces together themselves.

Actually this is a really good idea. I might just do this, and have Frey's FE12 recruitment circumstances be used for whoever the sacrifice was, instead. Especially with people like Jagen or Gordin, it could prompt alternate dialogue from related characters in scenes before their recruitment.

The mistake you're making here is assuming that every newcomer will see/approach things the same way you do. Permadeath is actually a very rare mechanic in games, and I can see even some hardcore RPG fans being put off by the mechanic of any character who falls in battle being dead for the remainder of the game, if for no other reason than that that's just not in hardly any RPGs. The only standard-style RPG I've played with permadeath is Makai Toshi SaGa/Final Fantasy Legend I, and even in that game your characters only die when they lose all their "hearts". The hearts are lost by being KO'd in battle, but each character starts with three of them and you can buy more, although they're fairly expensive. (You can also make new party members to replace the dead ones but I think those new party members come with base-level stats). Even considering that that's a very different game in many ways (although less different than you might think; it has a similar inventory system), that's still way more forgiving than Classic!Fire Emblem's "one strike and you're out" rule. I realize that one can only truly speak for one's own perspective, but do try to do so with respect for the fact that your perspective is not the only one. Also, although Casual greatly alleviates the threats present in allies being defeated, it doesn't eliminate them entirely, since there's still no way to revive fallen allies in mid-battle; if you lose someone who's integral to your strategy, they're still gone for the remainder of the battle, so you still want to take care to make sure that doesn't happen. Admittedly, the tension isn't the same as the risk that your character will be lost for the rest of the playthrough, but it's not entirely absent. I do understand and sort of agree with the viewpoint that permadeath is an important aspect of the Fire Emblem experience, but- and I think I said this before- I think that anyone who says that's the only thing distinguishing it from other SRPGs is selling Fire Emblem's other unique quirks and traits woefully short. Are people who play without permadeath on maybe not getting the full intended Fire Emblem experience? Perhaps, but as long as they're enjoying it, I don't see the need to deride them for it. Maybe suggesting, "Hey, if you'd like to bump the challenge up a notch, maybe try playing Classic on your next playthrough!" or something would be just fine, but even then you'd have to respect their decision on the matter, whether or not it's the one you personally would have made. I personally am on board with the idea of advocating for some gameplay incentive to play Classic, like, maybe special goodies or trial maps/bonus scenarios (think the BSFE and on-cart DLC chapters in FE12) that can only be unlocked on Classic playthroughs. Because the developers themselves pretty much said that Casual is supposed to be a sort of "training wheels" mode for people just getting into the series to lessen the penalty for allowing a character to fall in battle. However, it's also true that learning about Casual mode probably helped to solidify a number of people's decisions to purchase the game, so I pretty much think that the player shouldn't be penalized for playing Casual mode as much as they should be rewarded for playing Classic. And if the things are one-time unlocks (as in, you only need to unlock the thing once and you have it for good, not "per each file"), then they can always go back to Casual afterwards if they didn't like Classic, but at least they tried it. Offering rewards for doing a thing often works better than inflicting penalties for not doing it, I think.

Isn't that basically Cath's recruitment scenario? It's not really a bad idea for a way to recruit a character, but I can't think of anyone who'd join at that time for whom it'd make sense. You'll already have ten characters by the end of Chapter 1, though, and the first several chapters of Shadow Dragon kinda dump a ton of characters on you, so I don't know that early-game would be the best place to add new characters. Currently just one person (me), and I really appreciate the offer, but I'm not entirely sure if that's a position that's open, mostly because the writing was one of the things I wanted to personally pay extra-special attention to. I'm not so sure I'd want to entrust it to someone else.

Actually, my thought was to have the Gaiden swordfighting class be Myrmidon so it could go Myrmidon/Swordmaster/Trueblade, but that's still not 100% decided. I know that I am definitely not going to retain Alm's original class names for him, though, since Fighter and Hero have since become well-established classes in the series outside of Gaiden.

I wasn't intending to say that it was justification, just that I felt it was probably a significant factor in the way things turned out. I will cede that it seems like Awakening's overall direction was to be more lighthearted than most Fire Emblem games, which is probably a factor in the trope-y characters and higher ratio of silly support conversations. It's pretty noticeable after a while that... I'm not sure how else to word this other than, "Most Fire Emblem games' casts feel like they're the cast of characters for a story, whereas Awakening's cast of playable characters feel like they were made to be your party members". I don't know if the distinction I'm trying to get at with that makes sense, though. EDIT: Ack, something else just occurred to me... They were also making this game essentially under threat of cancellation if it didn't sell well, which is probably a factor in why they tried to seek "that sweet, sweet otaku dollar", because they knew that that would increase sales and prevent the series from getting cancelled. That's also probably not the only factor, but it's something worth considering, at least. That is true, but New Mystery had its own set of problems it presented, which is that they tried to cram a bunch of things into a remake of a game that really did not accommodate them well. Although, I suppose I should say that I'm sure that their own ideas for the direction of the game are also a factor in how things turned out, too, and I really should have acknowledged that more in the OP.

Honestly, I was thinking of changing Valentia's Falchion to Amatsu, since that's the only legendary sword brought up in the series that's uniquely "from" that continent. It'd give a bit more (non-canon) background to the sword, as well as being congruent with the aesthetic direction of the Dread Fighter if I use that as Alm's promoted class (I'm probably going to use Dread Fighter as Alm's promoted class).

I know you're all probably thinking "oh great, this topic again", and yeah, it is partially "this topic again", but I haven't seen anyone else bring up having the same take on it as I do, so... Anyway, you'd have to be pretty out of it not to notice that lots of people have been complaining about Fire Emblem Awakening. Admittedly, a lot of the complaints they have about the game are valid. The story and worldbuilding are extremely lackluster compared to most other entries in the series; the characters are written in a much more lighthearted manner, with many of them seeming to be based on a particular trope or quirk; the chapter design is mostly bland and repetitive; Pair Up is a broken mechanic, etc., etc. Now, my theory as to why this is is that the game was rushed. In the Iwata Asks interview with the development team, they mentioned that by the time they got around to actually making the game itself, they didn't actually have a whole lot of time left to do it, at least for a game of its intended scope. Or at least, they implied it, mentioning that they were quite impressed that they were able to get done as much as they did in the time that they had. However, as many have already noted, the game still lacks polish in a number of areas. The storyline has many of the telltale signs of a rushed plot: Little to no worldbuilding is given beyond what the audience absolutely needs to know to understand what's going on. Partially as a result of these worldbuilding deficiencies, a lot of the characters come across as lacking some of the depth that the characters of earlier games had, because the lack of world detail restricts their backstories and character endings to being very basic or vague. The casts of other Fire Emblem games existed in worlds that were more fleshed-out, so each character sort of had a place in their world that helped them feel more connected to everything and contributed to making them more compelling. Awakening's characters don't have much of a world to have places in. I'm not saying this is the only problem with Awakening's cast, but it's definitely the one that sticks out most to me after some thought, considering that some of the other problems with the cast stem from it. The first plot arc is the most fleshed-out and the best-constructed (although still not as well-thought out as it could be) with the arcs afterwards declining in detail and finesse. Transitions from arc to arc are very poorly done and lead to one of the arcs feeling nearly completely disconnected from the other two and essentially unnecessary (beyond the fact that the threat in that arc isn't exactly something the protagonists could just ignore). On a few occasions, characters show up who seem to be intended to be more important and/or impactful than the amount of screen time or development they get leads to them being. Ex. The Hierarch, Yen'fay, maybe Pheros and Mustafa. The Hierarch in particular seems like he's a remnant of a scrapped subplot. A few important antagonists don't have their motivations fleshed out hardly at all in the main plot, with those motivations being revealed instead in optional conversations that are only unlocked long after the characters have stopped being relevant to the plot. These motivations aren't really hinted at in the main story, either. The Avatar's involvement in the plot is very strange. The promotion for the game plays them up as being the player's presence in the world, and the ability to customize their stat balance and cosmetic traits would be consistent with this, as would be the fact that they are supposedly the one giving the orders to your troops to make their moves. However, for the purposes of the main plot, the Avatar is essentially a fixed character, with what few choices you get to make at major plot milestones having quite literally no effect on how things turn out whatsoever aside from what the next dozen or so lines of dialogue will be. The sole exception to this is the final decision, which does have an effect, although it's not really much of a choice. I think the problem with the Avatar isn't as much their existence as the fact that they haven't been done right yet. New Mystery attempted to shoehorn them (poorly) into an existing plot that was not designed to accommodate for their existence, and Awakening ended up half-assing the concept of a player-created main character. Then there's the chapter design and gameplay features. Pair Up was just not adequately balanced, plain and simple, but I think the chapter design has something to do with it, too, because there are very few chapters (I can think of just one. Out of fifty) wherein it's better to have a larger amount of adequate characters rather than a smaller amount of stronger characters, because... Almost every chapter was made using the same basic design concept, which would've made things a lot easier on a development team pressed for time. That design concept is basically, "Player starts on one end of the map, enemies are sort of centralized on the other, you win by fighting your way across and killing all of them". Now granted, this sort of chapter design is pretty common in the series, but- well, firstly, many of the other games offset it by having it not be the only thing you're doing all-game- but Awakening seems to do it mostly the same way every time. There are a few interesting maps to navigate, but for the most part they're just pretty straightforward marches from one end to the other, and the game rarely gives you incentive to split up your team, which leads into... The fact that Awakening's chapters rarely have much in the way of secondary objectives (villages to save, optional characters who can't just be easily recruited by the end of turn 2, etc.), and even fewer have secondary objectives which you're actually being seriously pressed to accomplish. Granted, there are a few good chapter designs in there and there are some chapters where you do kinda have to get on it to accomplish secondary objectives (getting the treasure chests in Donnel's Paralogue is one example of the latter I can think of, as well as protecting Severa in her Paralogue, and I guess the three chapters where you're defending villagers could count, too, but one of those can be cleared in one turn pretty easily before the enemies can even act), but I think what it comes down to is too many of Awakening's chapters are too same-y in terms of what you're doing, and after a while it becomes a chore to do them rather than something that's fun. Compare Awakening's level design to that of other Fire Emblem games, which have not only multiple objectives, but maps that make for different experiences in accomplishing the same objectives as you've seen before. Just a few examples off the top of my head are: Chapter 8 of Sacred Stones, a Seize chapter which brings in Ephraim's team a turn or so into the battle such that your teams are split, and you're likely to end up taking on the map on both sides simultaneously with the respective halves of your team. Chapter 18 in Shadow Dragon, another Seize chapter which has two bridges, separated by a small peninsula, connecting the north and south ends of the map, meaning that you need to keep your team together and have only a small space in which to navigate much of the map on the way to the castle. Chapter 14 in Blazing Sword, a Rout chapter where you take on Erik's army on a central battlefield whilst rushing to save recruitable characters to the north and south as well as attempting to defend Merlinus from Pirate attacks. Jerme's version of Chapter 25/27 in Blazing Sword, a different Rout chapter which presents a number of locked rooms, and tasks you with exploring and unlocking them to find and kill all the enemies. Now, I'm not saying that all of these chapters have exemplary designs or anything, but they're proof that you can make two chapters play differently even if the objective is the same, something that Awakening didn't do nearly enough. Awakening may not be entirely devoid of chapter design variety, but the level of variety is not nearly high enough for fifty maps' worth of gameplay. My point in making this thread is that a lot of posts I've seen criticizing Awakening and worrying about the future of the franchise don't seem to take into account the relatively short time the developers had in which to make the actual game. I had originally got to thinking about this when I came to the conclusion that I felt that Awakening's story wasn't necessarily bad in premise, but if someone were to hand it as it is in the final game to me for feedback, I would tell them that they weren't done working on it yet. And I think that's really the reason for a lot of the problems with Fire Emblem Awakening. IS- even if we specify post-Kaga IS- has shown that they can do better than Awakening's plot depth and chapter design, so I doubt it's a matter of what they can or can't do as much as it is about the level of quality the development time allowed for. I'm fairly certain they didn't intend for Awakening to have the weaknesses that it did, but it ended up that way because of what they chose to prioritize doing in the time that they had to make the game.

Most likely. I can say that that chain of events will be played as actual chapters, but I'm not sure yet if it's going to be the same chapters as in Shadow Dragon. If not, Frey and Norne will probably just be added to the starting crew from the get-go, or else recruited waaaaaay later when Marth retakes Altea. Prologue IV will be changed at least a little bit, though, to remove the sacrifice bit. Maybe it'll teach you about breakable walls there instead or something. Kris is essentially going to be demoted to being yet another mildly plot-important character, like Caeda or Ogma or Astram or somebody. The games will be remade with the philosophy that FE1+3 is Marth's story first and anyone else's second. Sure, I'd like to hear it! That is going to be a looooong list. I can start by telling you that every mutual support pair from the DS remakes will have supports together. There'll be more than that, though, obviously, since just going by mutual supports there would be some characters who just can't get supports at all. Don't worry about it! It's all good. I will keep your offer in mind when that time comes. Thanks! I thought that Gaiden's Falchion was just made of regular metal and its holy power was due to Mila being sealed inside of it. At this point I'm sorta leaning towards just changing the name or something, because having two Falchions in analogous roles in the same story would be rather weird and confusing.

Yeah that's probably gonna get toned waaaaaaay down to Kris just getting mentioned by name in a sort of "Thank you, everybody. I couldn't have done it without you."-type heroic "we won" speech. Part of the terms of Kris existing in this remake is that their rights to infringe on Marth's character development are revoked.

Because, hmm... How to word this... Sort of the same principle as why you get items, characters, even sidequests, etc., for saving villages. Sure, even if you got nothing of gameplay consequence, you'd still probably feel a little fuzzy inside for a second knowing that you saved the lives of those fictional innocents, but otherwise it's largely a self-imposed challenge to save them since you wouldn't actually technically lose anything for not doing it. However, you do get items for it. Even if it's technically optional to do, the game still rewards you for taking on the harder challenge. Although I suppose by that reasoning, there should also be incentives to play on the higher difficulties. Ultimately, I'm... not really sure. I just kind of feel like IS said that they hoped players would try the series because of Casual/Newcomer mode, and then move on to Classic, but by making Classic/Casual and Normal/Hard/Lunatic mode selections independent of each other, they made it so that unlocking the ability to play Reverse Lunatic/Lunatic+ on Classic mode is literally the only in-game incentive to play Classic at all, and even that incentive is only likely to affect the super-duper-100% completionists who are probably already playing on Classic anyway. I guess I feel like, if Classic is to be considered the "legit experience", that you're intended to move on to from Casual, there should actually be some in-game reason to pick it over Casual besides one's own nostalgia. But keep in mind, this is mostly just a sort of "what I think would be optimal"/"how I would do it"-type statement. I don't take any significant issue with the way it's currently being done, I just feel that the game itself should give you some incentive to try Classic mode, rather than just relying on Fire Emblem's equivalent of genwunners for that push, because they're more likely to get other people to resolve not to play Classic mode out of sheer spite due to how condescending some of them can be about it. Of course, if a given person is happiest just playing Casual mode, then more power to them, and I hope they enjoy that. Just because I would've designed things differently doesn't mean I can't recognize or appreciate the boons of how IS did choose to design them.

Hmm... This is one of those arguments where I can really see both sides to it. On the one hand, Casual/Newcomer mode is a great way for newer players to ease into the game, and so long as it doesn't replace Classic mode altogether, I generally don't really object to it existing, even if I'm not especially likely to actually use it. However, I also kinda agree that there is something lost in relieving permadeath of its status as a non-optional gameplay feature. Now, I'm not sure that I'd go so far as to say that what is lost constitutes the entirety of Fire Emblem's identity as a series; I think that would be selling the series' other distinguishing traits and quirks short. However, I do agree that if Casual mode is to be present, there should be some incentive within the game itself to play the game on Classic.

A few reasons. Firstly, because Hardin is plainly and simply more important to the overarching plot, being a crucial character in Mystery of the Emblem, so at the very least he's going to yield a Game Over if he dies. Secondly, Caeda is the very first Pegasus Knight in the entire series, so she's kind of important in that sense, I feel. I'm not changing the starting classes of any of the original starting team (Marth, Caeda, Cain, Abel, Gordin, Draug, Jagen, Wrys) for the same general sort of reason. Also, there's alternate dialogue in the ending of Shadow Dragon (and maybe New Mystery? Not sure, but probably) if Caeda dies, so I think she's supposed to be able to die without yielding a Game Over.All of that said, I am heavily considering giving Caeda a personal promotion, because she is a very major character compared to most of FEArchanea's cast. Mostly as incidental recruited characters. They're not going to be super important plot-wise or anything. For the most part, they'll just be there to sort of help strengthen the ties between the Archanean and Valentian stories a bit and reaffirm that they are part of the same narrative. I have a composer friend, but I've been sort of considering just using the FEDS soundtrack for the most part, and seeing if my friend wouldn't be willing to remix the Gaiden tracks in that style. Well, I was kinda thinking I would, mostly because that would be the best way to make sure everything stayed consistent. I'm not sure, though. If I had other team members who were writer-y types, I'd be cool with splitting the work with them, but presently I've no such assistance. Well, I'm obviously not going to make any major changes (to Marth's story, at least), but I will make a few tweaks here and there to fit them and Gaiden better together. Gaiden's story, however, will have some major adjustments, mostly because the delivery in the original game is severely lacking and weird, and I also need to reconcile or explain the whole "Falchion is on Valentia and has a different backstory" thing. Granted, it could be a different Falchion, but that would get confusing, so I'm thinking of either changing the name of Valentia's Falchion, or editing the backstory to retcon it and Archanea's Falchion into being the same sword. If I go with the latter idea, Palla, Catra, and Est's mission on Valentia will be to retrieve the sword, and on that mission, Est ended up getting kidnapped by Giesse or otherwise separated from her sisters somehow (and ultimately ended up imprisoned by Giesse). Kris will exist, and will still be an Avatar/My Unit character instead of a fixed character. They'll still be a "Lord" in the sense that if they die, it's Game Over, but aside from that they'll be more or less a regular unit (their growths will also be nerfed a tad to make them more on-par with other units). I'm also going to be giving Jagen's lines that they hijacked back to him and having the majority of Kris' lines come through extended/additional dialogue.Additionally, because I agree with complaints that Marth trusted Kris way too much, way too fast in New Mystery, Kris is going to come in as part of the starting team in Shadow Dragon instead, to make their bond with Marth more justified. As a result of this, New Mystery's prologue chapters are probably going to be axed (let's face it, they were basically New Mystery's "Lyn's Story" anyway), and Katarina and the assassin subplot are going to be introduced and incorporated into the plot differently, probably having the assassins be secondary/additional bosses in main story chapters. (It doesn't really make sense that you'd be able to just skip dealing with a group whose entire goal is killing the story's main character.) On the upside, this means that the Book 3 sidequests will be entirely new and not shoehorned in at incredibly awkward points in the story. I'm going to refrain from giving any ETAs for any parts being completed until FEXNA is out and I can actually start working on it. There's a reason this is in the Hacking Concepts section, after all. Yes, it will be using the same graphical style as the FEGBA games. Gaiden's going to be overhauled the most heavily out of all the games. So many of the maps in that game are in dire need of revisions it's not even funny. I don't know that I'll be replacing the filler maps as much as I'll be using their slots to add detail to the story and help fix the pretty major pacing issues the original had with its plot developments. Ssssssort of both. All the characters from the DS versions will be recruitable, but for Mystery of the Emblem, in particular, I'm likely to take the original SFC game and then carefully add the DS version elements to it my way rather than going with the sloppy implementation IS used for the DS version. For the music suggestion, it's nice of you to offer it, but I'm currently not sure. I'd need to find out whether those are official remixes or fan-made ones. I'm not using any fan-made material unless A: the fan who made them was me or another project team member, or B: I have the permission of the fan who made the material to use it. Perhaps? I'm not sure. I'm kinda more partial to the SNES soundfonts, actually, but music is really still up in the air and is not currently a priority. It'd be lovely to get a style like the remixed songs in the Mystery of the Emblem Sound Memorium or the Genealogy of the Holy War Arranged soundtrack for the remakes' OST, but I'm not going to be operating under the assumption that that's at all likely to actually happen.

If you wanted to be lazy about it, you could set the enemies' levels/stats to scale with the player army's average level. Or the average level of the player characters who participated in the last two or three maps or so. ...Actually thinking about it more it would be remarkably difficult to make auto-scaling enemy strength work in FE.

I don't know that I'd wanna liken the difficulty I'm looking for to any previous FE game. I'd more like for this game to be able to stand on its own as a gameplay experience than for it to just emulate an earlier game. As for the difficulty level, I want something harder than Awakening, but I want there to be more effort put into the higher difficulties than just "By exactly how much should we buff the enemies' stats/numbers?", because that's really not an interesting way to increase the difficulty. I'd like the game to make liberal usage of varying victory and defeat conditions and for it to be designed around situations where strategy, rather than the power of individual units, is the primary key to success.

Ohhhh alrighty. Full-customs would be ideal but I'd be willing to settle for well-made splices (which I can make myself) if/where I need to.

Data transfer carryover bonuses will work similarly to FE10, so it's a fixed bonus to the character's stats based on how much those stats grew in the previous Book. Sirius!Camus can get carryover bonuses from Ezekiel!Camus, but Ezekiel!Camus can't get any bonuses since he's not recruitable in Book 1. He's definitely going to be a Lance specialist, that much I'm certain of. His promotion is probably going to be essentially a Paladin with custom caps. Prooooobably he'll be mounted at base since otherwise he'd be the only non-mounted member of his starting group. I'm going to be making it so that sacrificing units isn't necessary for anything, optional or main-story. So no. Frey's joining circumstances and dialogue in Book 3 will be adjusted accordingly. I'm not entirely sure what you mean. It'll be GBA-style, visually, so most characters with non-unique classes will just use the standard GBAFE sprites for their class, but with their own coloration applied to it. I'm definitely not going to be doing the graphics FEDS style, if that was a concern.

I don't know what people mean by mentioning the Great Knight's "pseudo-3D"...? It's not "pseudo-3D" at all. The DS animations are pseudo-3D. FE8 Great Knight just has a lot of frames for its attack animations, so it's very smooth. Anyway, as much as they're not really all that good some of the time, I have a soft spot for the GBA-style animations. They're bright and lively, even if not realistic, so they're charming enough to watch that I generally leave them on (unless I'm doing something extremely tedious like Boss/Dance/Play abuse).