Cymbalina's Revenge

Cavalier!Delmud would've been nice, yeah. But I think the cav-->pally class route really does suit Ares. Whatever his upbringing, being Eldigan's son and the heir to the original Black Knight's powers sets him up well to be a particularly menacing specimen of paladin. (Also, obligatory Camus call-back. Sable Knight, Black Knight.)

Jugdral also has Ethnia, the Earth Mother Goddess mentioned in Thracia 776. Sounds like a similar figure to FE2's Mila, but we don't know who/what Mila actually is. Maybe Ethnia's also a dragon like Naga, Forseti, etc. (I assume Ethnia is the dragon/goddess that granted Crusader Nova the powers of the Gae Bolg aka Earth Lance but I've never seen Word of God confirming it.)

I'm in this camp. Two great tastes that really don't taste together. FE4's immense battles, cast of noble heroes, and bright colors just don't mesh with FE5's castle siege and prison break, Leif's army of relative nobodies, and somber atmosphere. I do like the idea of an "intermission" segment for FE4, something new in the style of FE4 itself, even if it'd probably be DLC.

Yes and no. Kaga's original scribbles contained three possible scenarios/routes, and what he published (that I've seen) are some of the scenarios from this original idea for a couple of characters, and we have the details on Jamke/Aideen, Azel/Tiltyu, and Beo/Raquesis but not the alternatives. These three routes are probably reflected in that most of the Gen1 ladies have three predestined lovers in the finished game. Anyway, what's Holyn for if not to pair with Ayra? She's his only predestined option. ;) Given the FE5 website fiasco I think it's beyond doubt that the plan was to make Beo/Raquesis canon, but in the end, it's not.

I did Noish/Ayra and Jamke/Ayra in back-to-back playthroughs. Noish!Larcei was marginally better than Jamke!Larcei and Jamke!Ulster beat out Noish!Ulster but it was really close regardless and I'd recommend either pairing. Noish!Larcei was a beast.

Yeah, I'd love to see that, not least because I love any translated Kaga stuff. If it's translated, that is. If you have the text of the original, share that anyway. All I remember seeing with regard to Tiltyu-Azel dated back to the "One's Dream" notes, which are early story ideas.

Yeah, all we know is Briggid married somebody because FE5 mentions her kids, and that someone was not Lewyn. Same with Tiltyu btw. FE4 arguably points to Briggid/Midayle because of their two conversations but there's not really a canon answer. Holyn/Briggid is excellent though.

Use both unless you're looking at pure efficiency. Lester may have availability and Canto but Faval is tanky enough to take damage plus the Yewfelle restores his health between turns. And depending on what your bred Lana for, Lester may turn into a liability. Midayle!Lester gets Hero Bow inheritance and is good for early chapters but I found Finn!Lester to be more useful lategame thanks to Miracle and a solid statline. I wouldn't use Jamke and his lousy SKL to breed either of them, though. Yewfelle is no good if Faval can't actually hit anything plus Jamke!Patty is terribad.

Finn!Lana caps magic super-quick but her RES is pretty bad, so you can't use her to bait siege tome users or anything like that. Finn!Lester is actually pretty darn good and can get by all right without the Hero Bow for two chapters; I preferred him over Midayle!Lester just for being able to dodge and survive. Lex!Arthur and Finn!Arthur both wreck shit with the hero sword; my last Lex!Arthur had MGC so bad the sword was his primary weapon. One of these days I will breed a Horsety boy.

What he said. Lex!Arthur was excellent for a couple of chapters and then... not very good. I've gotten got more mileage out of Finn!Arthur and the Miracle/Wrath combo thanks to Pursuit. Does anyone support Dew as a father for magic kids?

That's pretty much it. Alec works just fine for being "bait" because if a turn doesn't go as planned it's OK, but I managed to lure her with Azel once thanks to the trees. Finn also makes decent bait (thanks, Miracle) if you've leveled him up a bit. By exploiting MOV and terrain you can recruit Ayra without actually facing her in combat.

Leen gets almost no screen time after a promising start, whereas Corple has some very engaging conversations with Altena, Hannibal, and Patty in addition to the one with his big sister.

I thought he was a cousin. Anyway, he was orphaned before the start of the game and Byron's not dead yet, so he can't be Byron's kid. Seliph > Julia > Julius (Seliph's all right, Julia's pretty dull before she gets her memories back, and Julius is just a puppet for the evil dragon) Leif > Altena (I do like Altena a lot, I just like Leif more) Ishtar > Ishtore (Don't like Ishtar very much but Ishtore barely exists) Johalva > Johan > Brian (I genuinely like Johalva, feel little toward Johan, and nothing for Brian) Larcei = Ulster (I find them both pretty dull TBH) Lana >> Lester (Lester is probably my least favorite kid) Arthur > Tinny (by a slim margin) Nanna >>> Delmud (Del's underwritten and often turns out lousy for me as a unit) Patty > Faval (but I love them both) Fee > Ced (ditto) Corple >> Leen

Best: Shadow Dragon runs away with this one, but props to FE8 for a solid job there. Worst: FE10 cut out actual chunks of the script including an entire mode which developed Ranulf in a way that his joint ending with Ike doesn't come out of left field, so that one merits a thrashing on those grounds alone.

I think you'd have to severely prune the Thracia subplots to make a successful OVA out of it. Ditch the Dandelion Gang or Olwen's arc or Linoan's arc or even two of the three. The manga I own starts off pretty faithful to the game and then cuts through all the subplots with a knife in the third volume and it just feels bizarre.

I've felt for years FE2 actually had the best potential to make a good anime adaptation.

There's a quick and dirty way to fix the narrative of FE12 and that's to get rid of Kris and everything to do with Kris. New Mystery took a perfectly good narrative and tarted it up with fluff meant to flatter the player's ego at the expense of the supposed hero/protagonist. I just wish the game had offered a "retro" option with no Avatar. As for FE13, IMO the actual conceit of the plot and its basic structure were flawed. Time travel is challenging to pull off without feeling cheap in any form of media. A three-part, ocean-spanning narrative is hugely ambitious but the actual writing didn't feel like it was taking itself seriously so many places that it sure didn't feel like an actual war epic. I've read several attempts by fans to "fix" FE13's plot by changing this and rearranging that and it just bolsters my own feeling that the only way to really fix it would be to start fresh and approach the base material some other way. A story whose core message is basically about friendship and bonds between individuals probably would have benefited from a much smaller scale-- a single-nation civil war, not a World War.

FE12 and FE13 both pretty much embrace the idea of a Lord who keeps his/her hands squeaky clean while another character does the "dirty" work-- Kris on behalf of Marth, Robin on behalf of Chrom. With Kris it isn't even subtle. What I've seen thus far of a friend's playthrough of one of the FE14 routes is totally in keeping with that. If you're looking for a Lord who's OK with conquest and looting I suspect Thracia 776 is as edgy as you're going to get. And Leif most certainly is expected to show regard for enemy civilians-- that's part of what actually sets Leif apart as the good option for Thracia's future.

Yeah, it's awesome that he cracked the Top Ten after so many games and so many years, but he was hella popular back in the day and with good reason. Best availability in Jugdral, some of the best character development in Jugdral, he basically got his own spin-off game with FE5 and I'm pretty sure there was more official art with him than some of the actual Lords ever got. So yeah, it's not really that random? But still awesome. Pretty much the Perfect Knight, yeah. I mean, going by FE5 that's exactly what Finn was designed to be but it really does work and it clicks with people. Later characters might be better units (he can't solo his games) or have better writing or produce better children... but he's still Perfect. :D

The pairings I want wouldn't exactly produce optimized kiddos. Alec/Noish (good skills tho), Jamke/Dew... Lex/Azel would be interesting. The pairings I'd REALLY want would break up canon couples and would also produce sub-optimal children. I haven't crunched the numbers for Ethlyn/Aideen babies but the skillset already isn't promising.

FE5 actually did a lot of interesting world-building with bosses, especially if you capture them. That game would have a different undercurrent if every chapter boss were just Bad Guy X with no motivation and no incentive for you to spare them. Oddly enough even the palette-swap baddies in FE4 had different personalities. I love that guy in Chapter 10 (Ridale) who's thrilled to be on what he thinks is a real military mission and not more child-hunt garbage. I also love Aias in FE8. IDK, it's part of what I like about Fire Emblem-- it does give more depth to your opponents.

Larcei/Shanan every time. For Patty I usually do Corple. Paired her with Lester once but their dialogue annoys me. I have ended up with Lana/Seliph every time even when I wasn't aiming to. I want to pair him with Larcei one of these days... Fee/Oifaye. Leif/Nanna except on the playthrough where I paired him with Tinny and her with Ares. Tinny's so random. Deliberately paired her with Leif once and she's ended up accidentally married to Faval and Delmud as well as being unpaired. The time she married Delmud I was playing at 4AM and accidentally got Ares killed and then Tinny ended up as Queen of Agustria. Leen (or Laylea) gets Ares if she gets anyone. Never managed to get Julia paired off with anyone.

Finn making the top ten after all these years is the most hilarious thing. I've been giggling all weekend over it. Was equally pleased to see Ephraim, though. Hector, too. The top seven were not terribly surprising except for the order but 8-10 are... unexpected and delightful.

Even better, he's a troll. She's not canonically his sister, but she's not canonically absolutely NOT his sister, either. It's a "question" the devs are posing with no firm answer so you can keep yourself awake at night wondering how poor saintly Claude might react in the event he did learn he was banging his sister. Honestly I think you can view a lot of the weirder aspects of FE4/5 in that light, including the Raquesis shenanigans. There's no firm answer, there was never gonna be an answer, there's no final word on "what happens next?" It's just questions being put to you, the player, and you can answer them however you like.

The player's guide indicates only major blood carriers (aka holy weapon users) have the mark, but it can show up at any point in the carrier's life. So it's not foolproof. You can just say to yourself "Well, it'll show up one of these days" if a kid doesn't have it. Re: Altena the Master Knight IIRC the FE4 beta version had Quan as a Master Knight? I still see her in the Lance Knight class tree though.