Othin

Being a couple levels above the enemies can easily make a larger difference than the skill.

There was early speculation to this effect but as much as it should be the case, it isn't. In Awakening the only way to screw yourself out of any of the kids was to get characters killed off or not recruited or to get all of Sumia's possible husbands paired up with other characters. It's simply bad design that there are now so many pairings that you simply can't get while still getting all the kids.

So what you're saying is, it's still incest.

Kaze only leaves if he doesn't have an A support with Corrin in Hoshido route, not Nohr.

According to Pegasus Knight, the skill description is: 攻撃時、技％で発動。武器が力依存なら魔力÷2、魔力依存なら力÷2をダメージに加算 This seems to say that it uses Mag/2 for physical attacks and Str/2 for magic attacks, just like in Awakening. So I think that's just a typo.

This is why I asked if you tried it with Awakening. Did you? Or any other game that's been out worldwide for an extended time, for that matter. The fact that some people will get burnt out faster on the English version is absolutely a drawback. Everyone's experiences will be different, yes, but don't tell other people to expect this to be some huge and fantastic thing in the long run. Again, I do think it was worthwhile for me, but that doesn't make it a great decision in general.

Their stats are low. They have little appeal as a promotion for Pegasus Knights, but can be a big mobility bonus for Archers. Takumi in particular is an extremely powerful fighter already so he doesn't need the improved combat abilities of being a Sniper as much.

I don't think an M rating is likely, but a lot of it does seem to at least toe the line of what Nintendo has tended to allow into their major franchises regardless.

Azura doesn't need Exp anyway because she doesn't need stats. Except Move, that is. She's a perfect candidate for any spare Boots you happen to have.

It seems to me that Fates would be a better game if Camilla and other characters had less ridiculous outfits and if she had a better personal cutscene. Any region making such a change or fixing any of the other flaws in Fates would at least be improving their own version of the game, although of course they won't.

You don't need to raise Azura; she starts off with the only ability she needs to be one of your best characters throughout the whole game. You don't have to use her but her stats certainly shouldn't be a reason not to.

Did you try it with Awakening too? Not to say I regret getting any of this (except the Fates Summer DLC) but in the long run it's not as great as it can seem at first. Based on my own experiences even if you get the English version eventually you won't have the motivation to play it as much because of how much you've already explored the game on the Japanese version.

It's really weird. I'll have to take a closer look at this in the morning and see if it can sort out the complete dead end I ran into while trying to test it a few years ago. But yes, there are all sorts of oddities like the possibility of increasing shield weapon skill from getting hit by magic and potentially getting multiple points of a weapon skill from one battle.

Level 16 is pretty high; I don't think lack of ability to grow a stat past that is too big of a concern. In any case, Elite Ninja has a Speed cap 5 points higher than Puppeteer, but its base Speed is 4 points higher and its growth is 10 points higher. So Kaze will cap his Speed at least as fast as an Elite Ninja as he will as a Puppeteer, and once he does he'll have more of his class growths allocated to the capped stat and wasted as a result. So rate of capping Speed is actually an advantage for Puppeteer, not Elite Ninja, although it's a small one.

Yeah just playing through story chapters will give you plenty for ingame purposes.

Just everyone please don't get your hopes up for getting a game and a half for less than the price of a game and a half, alright? Hoshido+Nohr is a game and a half, it's priced as a game and a half in Japan, don't bet on getting it for anything less than what it's worth.

Interesting. Looks rather shoddy so far, but there's plenty of time for smoothing things over, and it's great to see it as an actual functioning thing.

I've managed to do nothing but play Fates for most of the summer, so that's a fair concern.

Fates has shown that it has earned the $60 price that the Hoshido and Nohr routes cost together in Japan. I see no reason why any other region would sell it for any less.

http://serenesforest.net/fire-emblem-fates/miscellaneous/downloadable-content/ No mention of the discounted second route DLC being restricted to having a digital base game. As far as I can tell you can spend $60 to get one physical version and two routes, the same as this should offer.

It would only be a better deal than two versions if you don't get the discount. Given that there is as of yet no reason to believe any region would lack the discount, it doesn't strike me as an especially pertinent concern. Two versions on a $60 cartridge is inherently worse than one version on a $40 cartridge and the other version as $20 DLC because all it does is take away the option to start out just paying $40 for one route; you're forced into buying them in a way that in the Japanese model is just one of several options.

If they're really doing this, it'll be at around 1.5x regular price like if you bought the second story as DLC in America or Japan. They're not going to sell Hoshido and Nohr together for the price of a single normal game. I don't see any way for this to turn out any better of a deal than the other regions.

Regarding ambush spawns, they're GENERALLY not a thing which is really nice, but there can be some exceptions with enemies appearing under weird circumstances, particularly the middle of the player phase. This is the entire reason I consider Nohr 16 one of the two non-great Nohr chapters. Both 16 and 19 have some fun elements, but chapters where you can get forced to reset based on a character death you don't have a sufficient chance to prevent are just bad design.

An Avatar stomp is easy.

It all depends on how much the extra cost means to you. I bought a Japanese 3DS for Awakening, but at that time it wasn't even confirmed for an overseas release at all.