EdeaCreamer

You know, the sheer hilarity of watching hundreds of flying mooks clipping into each other and basically spazzing out while their squad leaders attempt to conduct a duel might actually be worth the musou-cribbing. So I guess I hope there's Sky Knights and Wyvern Riders.

1. Classic + Casual + Phoenix. There's a sizable 'coffee break' demographic who won't want to mess with permadeath or even end-of-Chapter delay. 2. I don't give a damn, as it's a terrible idea. You'll probably replenish them on fortress tiles and/or after each Chapter? 3. Fates style + Heroes functionality (since that's where the money is). 4. C-S with Children. Billy's also probably going to be able to bone the kiddies. 5. Echoes style or Bethesda style, I don't anticipate a regression on the level of voice acting present.

Spring or Summer of 2020. Any earlier and it's going to have serious issues.

1. How has the promotional material/footage (trailers, clips, gameplay, previews, press-releases, etc.) for the game released so far affected your expectations? Soured them. The whole thing was very derivative, and the elements being derived from were generally the ones I'd rather see disappear (mature-looking woman who's going to be martyred, evil Santa Claus, too-important-looking tactician Avatar, generic-looking Lord characters who are probably just as marginalized in their own stories as Chrom/Xander/Ryoma, LOLI FUCKING MANAKETE, dragons are probably the bad guys again, etc.). 2. Would you be okay with a potential delay for the game? Don't particularly care, since I'm not hyped for the game anymore. 3. What are your current thoughts on the four characters so far? (Byleth, Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude) Pokemon GO meets generic shonen anime. Also the first two names are a miss (I'm just going to end up calling them Billy and Edgelord). 4. What are your current thoughts on the gameplay mechanics revealed thus far? (Troop support, skills, combat arts, free roaming, etc.) The soldier swarms really turned me off. They're an eyesore and a distraction, making random ineffective movements in the background while all having exactly the same face and body type for a given leader (I think I joked at one point that the mooks were actually Naruto extras using Kagebunshin no Jutsu). Skills/combat arts/free roaming are perfectly fine, but even together they're not enough to outweigh the failed attempt at mimicking Dynasty Warriors. 5. Do you like what is currently known about the story/world/lore of "Three Houses" so far? It feels safe, like they threw Fates and Awakening into a blender and made plot salad out of it. IntSys knows the formula now and it works, so they're going to continue using it until it stops working.

The problem for me is there's generally no narrative justification for having only one. Fates did the best job of it by a mile, due to explicitly calling it out as a magical effect fueled by a dragonstone and a blood pact with the Vallite royal family, so Azura really is 'it' as far as Dancing goes (she doesn't allow Shigure to do it due to the risks/pain it causes), but like... FE12 (and I'm assuming, by extension, FE3). Feena literally says she's just from 'a troupe'. Um, maybe we should go find the rest of these time-distorting foot wizards before heading off to Khadein? And no-one else seems to have these tactical juggernauts available for deployment? Why doesn't Hardin have a harem of them dressed up like Nina just giving him a bunch of 'extra turns' all day? The only reason's 'unit balance', and that doesn't sit well with me.

The 'multiple dancer' issue's pretty simple to fix, just add a 'Quick' flag that's cleared at the start of the next Phase for each unit. Being refreshed or benefiting from Galeforce sets the flag for that unit, meaning they're unable to benefit from such effects again for the remainder of that Phase (so no Dancing back and forth, they can refresh each other once for that Phase; still enables some interesting combinations but they're not going to be Baton Passing each other all the way across the map). Also, the game should have an additional flag bit available for when someone ends their turn without taking an attack/staff Action (i.e. they selected Wait, Rally, Dance, etc.); refreshing that unit would still work, but the refresher wouldn't be awarded any Exp. (this prevents shit like grinding Azura to level 40 in Fates!Chapter 5). Enemies should have refresher units just like the player, as well, with the above changes in mind. The Shelter/Dance combo from Fates is pretty clearly an oversight, just do a targeted patch for that one so that being targeted with Shelter automatically grays out the Dance command for the remainder of that Phase.

I still think it should've been Conquest first, where Corrin leads a successful campaign against Hoshido and shit apocalyptically hits the fan once Garon sits on that throne, then Birthright would be about the kids (y'know, 'birthright') trying to navigate the hellish landscape of the post-Conquest world trying to undo the damage that's been done, and Revelation would introduce the timey-wimey ball and allow you to mix-and-match all the characters from the previous two games in order to finally put down the entity responsible for the madness...and said entity wouldn't actually be a dragon (please).

Well, no, you just don't tell the audience that Bustica the Magnificent over there is the protag's sister when advertising. You spring that one on people AFTER they've bought the game. Then you Shyamalan that part out right at the last moment (ideally dragons are involved) so fantasies can be indulged without invoking too much squick.

I don't mind complimentary/free Ike, Alm, etc. DLC. I mind said DLC locked behind yet another paygate, especially if that paygate's in the form of one of those stupid-ass paperweights. You already have Heroes for all your microtransaction needs, IS, stop shoveling that shit into the main series (though at least you're not as bad as Blizzard...yet...).

The dragon's already been thrown in, the start of the trailer shows a giant fuck-off dragon in the middle of the mural and the end of the trailer is Tiki clone #whocares laying down forlorn on a decrepit-looking throne.

I really don't know how the other mechanics from previous FEs would even interact with the Musou mook clouds, so I'm not entirely sure what all I'd want to see for the time being.

Avatar: Yes, but Mark-typed as far as plot involvement goes, and Kris-typed as far as mechanical customization goes. No snowflake classes (Robin, Corrin), no shoehorning oneself into a plot to the point that the Lord unit might as well go on vacation (Kris, Robin), and absolutely no MyUnit as the actual main character again (Corrin). Billy looks like he's 'mentoring' Edgelord in the Three Houses trailer, which bodes ill (though at least he didn't talk, which is a good sign). Supports: No, honestly. I dislike the game herding me into using certain units together (and within a certain proximity of one another) due to 'sweet support bonuses'. Also, in a game with perma-death and plot twists (even especially trite twists like the ones we got in Fates), it's close-to-impossible to write up support conversations that have any impact on (or even relation to) the main plot. They end up being irrelevant discussions about pickles/arm-wrestling contests/sharing ellipses with one another/etc.; pass. Marriage: God, no. It's war; save that crap for the ending, and between characters that 1) have their relationships well-established throughout the game (not C/B/A -> meh, you're weird but let's be friends anyway and then suddenly S -> LET'S BANG), and 2) are all guaranteed to survive said war (so really no PC characters other than the Lord unit/s). Second-Gen Eugenics: If you end up receiving another Astral Realm for microwaving up War-Ready Instant Baby Soldiers again, I am -out-. No freaking -way-. Gameplay/Story: They need to be well-integrated and complement one another. Segregation of these two elements almost always takes me right out of the experience, without fail ('why didn't they use a Phoenix Down on Aeris', the supposedly fearsome enemy commander getting one-shot by a country girl with a bow because he happens to be on wyvern-back, etc. etc.). If they have to prioritize one over the other, then it'd have to be the gameplay, but it'd be a much lesser game for it, especially since Fire Emblem's tacitly about not losing any of your guys in battle (supposedly because you give a damn about them).

Worried, at least from the perspective of what little care I still have for the series. The musou mook squad nonsense in particular is an immediate turn-off, but there are quite a few other issues I had with the trailer, from niggling (e.g. translation of song lyrics) to exasperating (just how repetitive and derivative this whole preview was, particularly drawing from the very two games I'd like to get further away from, Awakening and Fates). If they shoehorn the breeding simulator into this thing again, I'm sitting out.

...given the mook squads following everyone around, I'm not sure how that would even work. Synchronized mounting?

Maybe it's split into four games and they'll be released in an episodic manner every three months during 2019 to coincide with the seasons, with the last one making a Christmas gift to complete the set.

...maybe the pink-haired dude's a Ninja who's performing Shadow Clone Jutsu.

...omg it is, LOL

It did the exact opposite for me. A whole bunch of faceless guys in the background seeming swinging their weapons around in a choreographed manner honestly reminded me of the House of Blue Leaves fight scene in Kill Bill Vol. 1, and that was paying homage to the kitsch of how silly it looks if you just draw your attention away from the Bride/MC and towards the edges of the screen for a few seconds.

So do we have any confirmation on whether this will be a single main release with all three MCs' stories in it, or if it's going to be three different game releases?

Well, killing off an evil degenerated dragon who happens to have the label of 'god'....

...you did see the Tiki knockoff on the throne at the end, right?

...so Edgelord, DAB, and Mr. President. Now I'll be able to remember these.

Wonder if each noble house will have its own separate game to buy.

Edelgard....Edgelard? Edgelord?

West Area: The wastes North Area: Etruria South Area: The Lycian League East Area: Bern