Official site update + Famitsu 15/3

[Shun One]

Not sure how new it is, but GoNintendo has a 2-3 minute long trailer up on their site:

http://gonintendo.co...story&id=173738

It shows off a lot of different team attacks.

At 1:20, there is the initial level up for the blond haired mage kid. He seems to start with solid enough bases.

These clips are on the official site. I am getting hyped for this the more of it I see.

I am a fan of the soundtrack of this game, I can say that for sure.

[Othin]

Of course it's so bad! Your complaints about magic differentiation seem to be the same ones you have about physical weapon differentiation to me. Hopefully you don't think merging the weapon triangle into one type would be an ass idea, don't you? Then can't you see that merging Anima is just as bad?!

What I'm concerned with is the result. In 6/7/8, I see three magic types. That's enough. In 11/12, I see one. That's not enough.

Five can be better than three, but it's not necessary; three can be enough on its own. Furthermore, we must evaluate what it means for a game to have five. Let's take a more in-depth look at each of the games that had the split elements:

FE4: Dark was enemy-only, so there were only four types available to the player. For the elemental magic, almost all classes had equal access to each. Characters often had better access to one type than others, but it rarely mattered which type; they all played virtually the same, except some were lighter than others.

FE5: Characters used even more wide swaths of magic types, and they had to, since none of them had enough magic to use on its own. Among the five types available, aside from limited siege and personal spells, there were only nine spells available: up to two for each magic type. All characters could use a mix of the basic spells, and pretty much had to. It was pretty much impossible to get an A rank without starting out close to it, so the high-rank spells were pretty much just exclusive to certain characters rather than training towards them. It had some advantages over mashing things together, but not much.

FE9: Dark magic was completely nonexistent. Light magic was locked to Bishops, and Rhys was the only playable Bishop. Otherwise, magic users just used all three elements. They could train more in one than another, but there was little distinction in who could use what. Fire/Thunder/Wind became more of a replacement to the Anima/Light/Dark triangle than an expansion of it, and it wasn't as good of a replacement.

FE10: Dark magic returned, yet still managed to be pretty irrelevant. Light magic was more relevant, but the three magic types remained combined for every class above first tier. Different maximums for different classes offered some help differentiating things, but the three elements were still largely combined.

So overall, those games rarely if ever did much to actually separate the three elements, despite doing so in name. The same characters used them, and they tended to function about the same. Meanwhile, this tended to come at a cost of dark and light magic. There are definitely improvements that could be made, but as long as there are at least three separate types, I'd say that's a decent amount.

Not sure how new it is, but GoNintendo has a 2-3 minute long trailer up on their site:

http://gonintendo.com/?mode=viewstory&id=173738

It shows off a lot of different team attacks.

At 1:20, there is the initial level up for the blond haired mage kid. He seems to start with solid enough bases.

MU casts a spell clearly named "Thunder". It emits what looks like a fireball. wtf?

Regardless of realism in how difficult it is to go from one weapon type to another or from one spell type to another (and I would hope there's more to spellcasting than reading a few words and things blow up), it's better gameplaywise to have a magic triangle so different magic users are more/less useful against others, and it's better for the setting to have magic split up so we don't have Dark Mages casting 'light' magic or whatever.

Also keep in mind DS FE had only 3 t2 magic classes, so it kind of made sense to only have one magic type or there would only be one class using each type. But we've probably got at least 4 in FE13 (Sage, Druid thing, Valkyrie for the Troubadour, and likely Bishop from Priests/Monks), plus any others from branching promotions.

HOWEVER, the above paragraph is simply a guess from classes used in past games. If Clerics/Priests all go Battle Monk/Cleric or Sage now and there's no 'light' magic dedicated t2, and then Valkyries might be sword/staff while the other Troubadour choice is Mage Knights (while the Mage choices would be Mage Knight and Sage), it's fairly understandable why they would compress tomes to one type; though the whole thing being understandable doesn't mean it was a good idea :M

One class using each isn't bad as long as they all stay relevant. Rather, it helps the classes stay different, unlike Sage/Sorcerer/Bishop which were pretty much all the same. And as much as I'm not a fan of Reclassing, it helped every class stay relevant if used. If not used, however, it would kinda screw Dark magic, and like in FE6, Light magic would have been rather limited by being Tier 2 only.

Mage Knights better fucking not use staffs again.

Edited March 15, 2012 by Othin

[Book of Ereshkigal]

If the spells have enough variety, I don't really care about rank.

Hey, it means My mage can use any spell I want them to.

[Rewjeo]

Hey, good job completely missing the point and making an idiotic strawman. There is a huge difference between picking up a sword, or picking up an axe, compared to chanting some words and blowing shit up, or chanting some other words and blowing shit up. Functionally, each type of physical weapon takes it's own disciplines to use correctly, and thus a distinction is required. Differences in magic are only spawned where the mechanics involved require it. And if you haven't noticed, this game appears to take place in Archanea, where, look at that, magic is all grouped together.

I believe Canas talked about how different using dark magic instead of anima/light can be in his supports, although it has been a long time since I read those. Comparatively, it can't be all that different to swing an axe instead of swinging a sword. In fact, a number of games make the distinction between one and two handed weapons, rather than swords vs. axes. I do suspect someone trained to use a short sword would find it easier to use Ross's hatchet than to use, say, Durandal.

You can't say I'm missing the point completely when you are assuming that the magic types are being separated arbitrarily when maybe, just maybe, in this world they are actually as different to use as a sword and a bow. Maybe you're missing the point?

[Book of Ereshkigal]

Thing is I'd imagine different magic needs different training. Like, in Elibe Dark was body inhabiting. Or granted by Loptus. Point is, it requires more training than spewing words,

[Othin]

The game sets fantasy rules. If a game says they're similar enough, they're similar enough, at least in that game. If a game says they're different enough, they're different enough, at least in that game. We have no basis upon which to say that there's a problem with the game's logic in that area.

Any number of things could cause the difference. Let's say in Archanea, at least at the time of FE1/3/11/12, the magic books are all written in some weird language, but it's pretty similar between the different types of magic. And maybe in Elibe the three magic types have entirely different languages, so someone who can read one might be clueless in another. And maybe in Archanea, after a few hundred years and by the time of FE13, the language has started to diverge, so that people specializing in the language used in elemental books might not have a sufficient grasp of the language in dark or light books.

Edited March 15, 2012 by Othin

[Ether]

Exactly. And in every game taking place in Archanea, magic types are similar enough to be grouped into a single category. The lore of the continent says that magicks are not different enough in use to be segregated, aside from Prf magicks, which very may well be showcased here.

Whereas different weapon types show real world disciplines that are followed in their use. You cannot handwave that with game logic, because it is a simple fact. Swords and Axes are fundamentally different, with different centers of gravity, different methods of use. And I will laugh if you say there is no functional difference between a sword and a lance, or an axe and a bow.

[ZephyrD]

There's two primary issues with balancing magic in FE, the first being the smaller number of casters compared to martial classes, the second is that it's just really hard to make all 3 anima types worth it. Let's take a quick look at them

Fire Emblem 4: Split? Yes! Relevant? No! All the tomes of the same level had the same might, the only major difference being weight, which by default gives you Wind as the best magic.

Fire Emblem 5: Split? Yup. Relevant? Kinda. Handled well? No, not really. 2 E Tomes, 1 D Tome, 1 C Tome, 0 B Tomes and SIX A tomes (one you can't even use). In addition to 3 player-wielded character-locked tomes. Furthermore, by the A tomes, 3 are siege tomes, and for normal A magic, everything but Tornado is ungodly heavy if you didn't abuse scrolls for 18+ build.

Fire Emblem 9: Split? Yup. Relevant? No. Thunder was stronger than everything else and almost always the ideal choice. Mages in tier one could even use it from the start. The weight differences were mostly negligible.

Fire Emblem 10: Split? Yes. Relevant? Kinda. FE10 did the best of all the previous games with split, because the amount of laguz made the effective bonuses actually somewhat relevant. (However, the status of being a Wind/Fire/Thunder Archsage was rather irrelevant in relation to it.) However aside from a single chapter in part 4, this is only relevant in part 3. (No anima mages in part 1, no laguz in 2.) Thunder was also nerfed very hard from FE9, leaving it mostly useless aside from battling dragons. (By the time you get mages you're reaching the "I'm too strong to care about the weapon triangle anyway.) It was also hard for some mages to use decent level tomes of their non-main type, because of a low weapon rank, unless they'd been training with it. (Which doesn't even pay off.) So you're either using the highest level you can use (which, in some cases, might be the E rank, for someone like Soren, up to the A rank for Bastian.) however, forged tomes are imbalanced and a forged Thunder tome is stronger than Arcthunder anyway.

As you can see, trying to balance Wind/Thunder/Fire always falls into some kind of design pitfall. Furthermore there's rarely enough variety in the magical classes for it to be important. Combining Axe/Sword/Lance is entirely different, as there's far more physical classes, which manage to handle themselves despite axes generally being far superior. The magic imbalances tend to stand out far more.

FE 6/7/8 probably handled magic the best, despite having Anima as one, due to having relevant Dark/Light magic. FE11/12 were using a dated game for the basis, so it's hard to take away points.

If they have decent variety between the Anima tomes such as, Wind effective against pegs, thunder vs dragons, etc, then I think combining the rank for them would be overall a better gameplay move, because you have access to the rarely used, but strategic tomes (ala thunder in FE10, where it was crap aside from dragons. It's hard to say what will be strategic before the game is out, though) at higher levels, without being punished for only having an E rank. Furthermore, it's nature magic, it's not too far of a stretch to combine it into one, lore-wise.

At least, that's my two cents on the magic situation. I don't think it's an inherently bad thing from a gameplay move, nor do I think it's a poor move for lore.

[The_Purple_Knight]

I like the combined magic system but the avoid formula sucks . No avoid durability mages and myrmidons will be too squishy to bring to the front lines :( ah well better then fe11/12 dodge was non existent you expected characters to get hit everytime...

Edited March 15, 2012 by The_Purple_Knight

[Othin]

It's worth noting that in Part 3, Ike's group doesn't fight Laguz and Micaiah's group doesn't have elemental magic. So the bonus is still irrelevant, except Thunder vs. Dracoknights. Which honestly balances it out well enough.

I like the DS Avoid formula, personally.

Edited March 15, 2012 by Othin

[ZephyrD]

It's worth noting that in Part 3, Ike's group doesn't fight Laguz and Micaiah's group doesn't have elemental magic. So the bonus is still irrelevant, except Thunder vs. Dracoknights. Which honestly balances it out well enough.

You are correct, it entirely slipped my mind. Tormod's funny like that, joins in part 1, and manages to miss every laguz chapter.

[Griffen78]

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/3ds/afej/characters/chara14.html look at that game play image to the right. Is that dark magic?

[VincentASM]

What, where? You mean his hat?

In any case, Richt is a regular Mage, so I doubt he'd use something that's not regular Tomes.

[Othin]

You are correct, it entirely slipped my mind. Tormod's funny like that, joins in part 1, and manages to miss every laguz chapter.

Ilyana as well, pretty much. She's around for most of Part 1, but she's locked to Thunder magic the one time you fight Laguz there.

[Griffen78]

What, where? You mean his hat?

In any case, Richt is a regular Mage, so I doubt he'd use something that's not regular Tomes.

...dang I need to get my eyes checked....that is a hat >.< I assumed he was the character in the backround.....What is up with all the mages having big wizard hats anyway?

Also...looking at the new troubadour....I might need to update my signature I think I might be in love

Edited March 15, 2012 by Griffen78

[Byte2222]

Guys, I've just had an idea. Do you think that magic types and trinity of magic might still be in the game, just all under one rank? If you think about it (as ZephyrShakuraus said above) in FE10 it's a huge pain to raise anima weapon ranks and it's been implied that they're fairly similar magic, maybe IS decided that things would be easier with one rank? Practically speaking most mages always have the 3 anima types to hand all the time so using only one rank wouldn't change much.

This is, of course, excluding light and dark as dark tends to trump all of anima and if they were all one type it'd make anima redundant.

Edited March 15, 2012 by Byte2222

[Griffen78]

Guys, I've just had an idea. Do you think that magic types and trinity of magic might still be in the game, just all under one rank? If you think about it (as ZephyrShakuraus said above) in FE10 it's a huge pain to raise anima weapon ranks and it's been implied that they're fairly similar magic, maybe IS decided that things would be easier with one rank? Practically speaking most mages always have the 3 anima types to hand all the time so using only one rank wouldn't change much.

This is, of course, excluding light and dark as dark tends to trump all of anima and if they were all one type it'd make anima redundant.

...not sure I like that....

Oh, and can someone translate the name of the troubadour? I wanna know this beautiful enchantress's name D:

Edited March 15, 2012 by Griffen78

[ZephyrD]

Guys, I've just had an idea. Do you think that magic types and trinity of magic might still be in the game, just all under one rank?

That actually crossed my mind as a possibility as I was typing up the FE10 section. They could, in theory give you the weapon triangle even if it's all under the same Rank. But that does give the problem of effectively giving all your anima mages WTC at all time vs others ones. (Which could be a bit strong.)

However, mages tend to be reasonably rare as enemies, as well as likely only a few mage playables, so it might actually work out. In such a situation they'd probably need an FE4 system where both Light AND Dark win over anima, just to balance it out.

I wouldn't bet on it though, but I'd also never have bet on Support attack and defense showing up in an FE game either.

[Leif]

If you guys notice the portal that is shown in the trailer and this scan, look around the central ring. Do you notice the Zodiac signs? I see Libra, Virgo, and Leo. This reminds me of Final Fantasy Tactics. I wonder if this will have any significance, or if it is merely an artistic touch.

[TheEnd]

...not sure I like that....

Oh, and can someone translate the name of the troubadour? I wanna know this beautiful enchantress's name D:

Mariabel - Haughty young lady ('ojou-sama')

A member of the vigilant force and Liz's best friend. Daughter of a (the?) most important noble family of the Holy Kingdom of Iris. She has a proud and domineering personality, but is sweet to her friends. Her class is Troubadour.

[Griffen78]

I need to learn to read the whole thread ._.

[Othin]

Guys, I've just had an idea. Do you think that magic types and trinity of magic might still be in the game, just all under one rank? If you think about it (as ZephyrShakuraus said above) in FE10 it's a huge pain to raise anima weapon ranks and it's been implied that they're fairly similar magic, maybe IS decided that things would be easier with one rank? Practically speaking most mages always have the 3 anima types to hand all the time so using only one rank wouldn't change much.

This is, of course, excluding light and dark as dark tends to trump all of anima and if they were all one type it'd make anima redundant.

That's exactly what FE11/12 did anyway. They just didn't have much Light/Dark magic, which makes sense. I don't think the weapon triangle would make a huge difference in this case.

Looking at MU's stat screen, the magic icon doesn't look like it could possibly be specifically anima-ish. On the other hand, it looks yellow, and he's using Thunder magic. I know we've seen other MUs using other types of magic, but do we know if they have the same icon? It's possible MU picks some one of the three elements to start with, although granted I don't think it's the most likely possibility.

That actually crossed my mind as a possibility as I was typing up the FE10 section. They could, in theory give you the weapon triangle even if it's all under the same Rank. But that does give the problem of effectively giving all your anima mages WTC at all time vs others ones. (Which could be a bit strong.)

However, mages tend to be reasonably rare as enemies, as well as likely only a few mage playables, so it might actually work out. In such a situation they'd probably need an FE4 system where both Light AND Dark win over anima, just to balance it out.

I wouldn't bet on it though, but I'd also never have bet on Support attack and defense showing up in an FE game either.

They've had WTC in pretty much all the games with a split elemental triangle.

I agree that it would be a kind of wonky triangle if it was tried to be balanced like normal, though, since like in FE11/12, Light and Dark magic would certainly be much more rare than the others.

If you guys notice the portal that is shown in the trailer and this scan, look around the central ring. Do you notice the Zodiac signs? I see Libra, Virgo, and Leo. This reminds me of Final Fantasy Tactics. I wonder if this will have any significance, or if it is merely an artistic touch.

The Zodiac showed up in FE3/12 as well, with the Star Orb shards. If anything, it's probably a reference to that. And we know the Shield of Seals is back...

Edited March 15, 2012 by Othin

[CrashGordon94]

If they're not under different Ranks, they're the same weapon type. In this case one really depressing, needlessly broad and awful weapon type instead of three cool ones (well, two cool ones and a lame one but still).

[Emblem Lugh]

If they're not under different Ranks, they're the same weapon type. In this case one really depressing, needlessly broad and awful weapon type instead of three cool ones (well, two cool ones and a lame one but still).

You're not making any sense. If they happen to still have the triangle, there is no difference. In fact, it makes them easier to train at once. And there is still light and dark you are forgetting about...

[CrashGordon94]

It's not enough, Anima needs to be split too, like Jugdral/Tellius.