So I went back and read the previous translations of Serenes Forest, and am still making my way through this big one, and I got some thoughts going through my mind. Firstly, this conversation makes me laugh.
I hear boys seem to prefer cute, normal girls over stunning beauties. But isn’t it like how dukes are always above viscounts? What do you think, teacher?>It’s hard to approach those superior to you.
>Nothing really matters at the end of the day.
>You’d get bored eating fine cuisine everyday.
That's supposed to be one of those moments a student asks you a question and if you give the "right answer", good things will happen. On a very base level I kind of hate the mentality of this approach, but now I'm tempted to just be the awful Professor telling students "Nothing really matters at the end of the day".
The funny thing is, this is all described as being like Persona even in the Serenes Forest translation, and I suppose I understand why since that's the most recent mainstream RPG to have those mechanics. But as I'm reading the calendar information I'm thinking about Harvest Moon, the first time I encountered social mechanics mixed into a calendar with limited time in the day. I would later learn in high school when I tried my first (and I think last) dating sim that Harvest Moon was certainly not the inventor of such mechanics.
Given that I came in with Awakening and never minded the social element, I have mixed feelings here. On one hand, it looks like the social mechanics will be better than Fates, but better and good do not always go hand-in-hand. I imagine that question I quoted isn't far too different from other games of this nature, but I still don't know if I trust Intelligent Systems/Nintendo to have the good writing to pull this off. Or maybe I just don't trust current Intelligent Systems. Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones had decent writing and localization, though even there most characters are little more than archetypes. I dunno.
But most of all, the theory the translator has is that the big story mission is at the end of each month, meaning you effectively spend the rest of the month in social and practice skirmishes to build, buff, and customize your army. Maybe you can control how often you take students on combat exercises throughout the game, but it certainly feels like it's a huge shift in how you approach the game compared to prior entries. While I am open to seeing how they pull this off, I can understand how other players would be incredibly disappointed. I can only imagine that, at some point in the game's story, there will be a "break" from status quo and suddenly you'll be lunged into constant combat (as would fit common Japanese narrative structure). I mean, try and tell me there won't be a moment the Monastery is under attack, falls apart, and now you and your students have to go and fight whoever the big bad is.
It's all pointless speculation, regardless, but I'm certainly not surprised that I'm the only person whose enthusiasm for the game hasn't actually been diminished. There are going to be things I don't like, I'm certain, but at the same time I'm curious to see how it all comes together. I just kind of feel bad at the same time because, around here at least, it feels like the franchise is moving further and further away from what everyone else wants, and what sort of discussion and conversation can be shared by time the game releases?
I look forward to seeing more of this in motion at E3, at the very least (even though I have a doctor's appointment scheduled that will no doubt cause me to miss the Nintendo Direct, drat it all).
Oh! And DSGamer, I might have given you a hard time in the past, but I'm looking at some of the comments on that Serenes Forest website, and at least you aren't complaining at the very existence of Casual difficulty modes. Evidently these are a blight to some of the hardest of the hardcore Fire Emblem fans. 
But most of all, the theory the translator has is that the big story mission is at the end of each month, meaning you effectively spend the rest of the month in social and practice skirmishes to build, buff, and customize your army.
This is Persona to a T. The fact they're calling it a "Field Study" is ripped from Trails of Cold Steel. All of this is so original. 
I'm glad to see a new weapon being introduced (Guantlets) and I'm still waiting to hear about how Battalion strength works. Are the extra units visual window dressing? Does it decrease as they're killed.
The bit about Gambits reminds me of Valkyria Chronicles, which is welcome.
The funny thing is, this is all described as being like Persona even in the Serenes Forest translation, and I suppose I understand why since that's the most recent mainstream RPG to have those mechanics.
It's the difference between "this is a painting of a woman, and there are lots of paintings of women" and "this is literally a photocopy of the Mona Lisa". We are well and truly into photocopy-of-the-Mona-Lisa territory here with Fire Emblem and Persona.
The closest I've played to a Persona is Tokyo Mirage Sessions, which lacked the time-mechanics of the Persona series, so I don't really have a comparison point to go by myself. I suppose the first Persona I'll ever play is a Fire Emblem, then.
and I'm still waiting to hear about how Battalion strength works. Are the extra units visual window dressing? Does it decrease as they're killed.
Based on the Serenes Forest information, different "Battalions" or "Brigades" or whatever will have HP values in addition to stat modifiers.
If the character leading the battalion takes damage, the battalion’s health will decrease. Once the health reaches 0, the battalion’s effects will disappear and Gambits cannot be used. A battalion’s health can be restored at a guild. For E to D rank battalions, it seems to cost 1 Gold per health, while C rank battalions cost 2 Gold per health.Like characters, battalions can level up and increase their abilities by fighting.
There will be three icons depicting how much health the Battalion has. It largely seems, aside from stat boosts, that the benefit to Battalions is in Gambits. The wording doesn't seem to clarify if the Battalion absorbs the HP damage of your character, or if your character and the Battalion both take damage as individual entities.
Basically, some general ideas of how they work, but I'm looking forward to Treehouse for clarification.
Still in wait and see mode. Nothing I can do but vote with my wallet in the end.
If it sucks I'll go back and grab that last 3DS one instead.
garion333 wrote:and I'm still waiting to hear about how Battalion strength works. Are the extra units visual window dressing? Does it decrease as they're killed.
Based on the Serenes Forest information, different "Battalions" or "Brigades" or whatever will have HP values in addition to stat modifiers.
If the character leading the battalion takes damage, the battalion’s health will decrease. Once the health reaches 0, the battalion’s effects will disappear and Gambits cannot be used. A battalion’s health can be restored at a guild. For E to D rank battalions, it seems to cost 1 Gold per health, while C rank battalions cost 2 Gold per health.Like characters, battalions can level up and increase their abilities by fighting.
There will be three icons depicting how much health the Battalion has. It largely seems, aside from stat boosts, that the benefit to Battalions is in Gambits. The wording doesn't seem to clarify if the Battalion absorbs the HP damage of your character, or if your character and the Battalion both take damage as individual entities.
Basically, some general ideas of how they work, but I'm looking forward to Treehouse for clarification.
Right, still want more info. I'm specifically curious if their stats decrease as their health decreases and they lose units, visually. Losing the ability to gambit makes sense, but is there more to it?
I'm nearing the end of my playthrough of FE: Echoes SoV (Hard/Classic), and I wanted to toss my thoughts out there since some had mentioned being interested in checking it out.
Starting off, the game was fairly boring; no weapon triangle, and some small, basic maps. For the first two acts, I kept pushing on since it was still sort of fun but not super satisfying, but everything else about the game was well done: the art was fantastic, the writing was good, the voice acting was fantastic (by Fire Emblem standards), and the story, while basic, was well executed on.
Around act 3 the difficulty started to mount and I had to work for it a bit more. Also by this time, there is enough unit diversity that there are more interesting tactical decisions to make. Only being able to carry one items started off as a headache, but later on made the choices of who got what weapons carry a lot more weight. For instance, Valbar (the knight/general) could laugh off all physical damage if I gave him a shield nothing, but then he couldn't do any damage at all, which made it really hard to level him up. So you can give him a really good spear, but of course that means a more mobile or hard hitting character can't use it to double or take down bosses. This made for some interesting choices around the mid game.
But it was in the beginning of middle of act 4 (both routes) that I got slapped down, and actually had to go back and grind a bit to promote a few characters so they weren't dead weight or just waiting to get sniped by a witch. After the promotions, I got back into the winning groove, but I was still having to think a lot more carefully about what I was doing and take a few gambles. And despite the simplicity of the maps, there are some legit interesting level design later on (storming a mountain fortress on Alm's route while having gargoyles thrown at you every other turn) (poison marshes are awful, though). But I think by the middle of the game and on, the only mediocre part of the game (the gameplay) catches up and holds it's own, so I would have no problem recommending Echoes to anyone who wants to play it.
And as someone who will always reset when someone dies (except maybe against a final boss), being able to use the turnwheel to just roll back a turn or two to fix the mistake seems like a great innovation. I might have scoffed at it when I was younger, but now it feels like the designers are respecting our time and I appreciate it.
Spoiler for one of the later classes:
Dread Fighters are hilariously broken. Gold Knights seem overpowered since they have great growths, but DFs are ridiculous. They have the movement of horses, they double everything, if they're Jesse they crit everything that moves, and they laugh at magic. And being touched by any attack that's not from another DF. And you get three of them easily in Celica's route!
Saber is easily my do-it-all MVP, much like Raven and Nephenee were in their respective games
Can't recall if we knew this or not, but the Weapon Triangle is confirmed to be gone from Three Houses. That surprises me, but also explains why we got a new weapon.
While a sword won't naturally beat an axe, teaching a character the Axebreaker combat art will give them an edge in battle. These arts are powerful moves and abilities that can go above and beyond the average attack, but cost additional weapon durability. There is the tradeoff: do you want to hit an enemy with everything you've got now, knowing an attack three turns later might break your lance and leave you without a weapon?
Another interesting bit:
Rather than a single fighter, each character commands a batch of forces called a "battalion." These are not limited to your character's class or weapons, and can be used to either augment or supplement their abilities. An archer who's always pestered by speedy cavalry units can have a lance battalion, warding off any bold riders. My personal favorite was a batch of gauntlet-wiedling hype men, whose Gambit—a special ability unique to each character's battalion—was to cheer on our forces, giving them further range to move.
So far, so good. I'm still concerned with the school aspect, but I'm getting enough good vibes from the rest I may put up with that aspect if it stinks and focus on the rest.
Also, sounds like the way the story is structured it's more like Sacred Stones where you're given a choice of paths (the three houses), instead of having separate, distinct stories like in Fates.
Removing the weapon triangle was one of the better design choices in Shadows of Valentia, so I'm happy to see them follow-up on that. I'm still nervous enough about the school aspect to not get my hopes up, but I like what I've heard from E3.
Neat information from another site I visit RPG Fan
http://www.rpgfan.com/boards/index.p...
So Famitsu has opened the floodgates. As a warning, this post is filled with potential spoilers, rampant speculation and rushed translation errors (the last of which will likely get ironed out over time). So readers beware....Mechanics-wise, you have:
- Personal Skills, Class Skills and Custom Skills, as well as a potential 4th trait based upon if they have a Major or Minor Crest or not (Byleth and Felix have confirmed Major Crests, many of the other students have Minor Crests, including the main 3, but not all students have one).
- Personal Skills work just like in Fates, Class Skills are obviously Class locked, and Custom Skills can be used in any Class.
- Additionally, there are some classes that are gender locked to Males like Dark Mage and Punch Wizards (although Barbarians look to have the same weapon set as whatever they'll end up calling the Punch Wizards). No mention on any potential Female only Classes, but here's hoping that they aren't just Peg Knights and a Staffbot yet again.
- Crests meanwhile are literally FE4's Holy Blood mechanic (albeit it doesn't specify how much Crests affect stat growths; or if there's gonna be a second generation (wrrrrryyyy!!!); Holy Weapons will likely be tied to them though).
- Canto's back and will work like it did on the Console games (i.e. FEs 4, 5, 9 & 10), but certain Weapons/Classes cannot be used with Horses. Still likely won't stop the Three Horses jokes.
- Those Green Triangles are indeed the health/strength indicator of a character's Squad (which are largely similar to Langrisser's hirelings). Said Squad can also level up as well as become more effective as a character's Leadership skill rises.
- Claws are indeed auto Brave weapons that can be used to attack twice but cannot be used from Horseback.
- There is indeed a Persona style Calendar system (admittedly, this is already looking like a better Persona x FE crossover than TMS ever was) with a 1:1 layout to your standard IRL calendar.
- Magic, along with Gambits, have a per map number of uses (which for Magic was something similar to Berwick Saga's implementation where you regen'd a couple of charges of spell use per map).
- Gambits themselves are used alongside your Squad/hirelings and can't be used if you either run out of charges or your Squad is defeated.
- Instruction Mode functions by giving you a few periods a week to spend time teaching your students, with weekends spent wandering the campus/grounds to find other activities to do.
- Each Month is treated like a chapter with the end of the chapter having an old fashioned battle for each character to strut their stuff in.
- There are a variety of activities that can also occur that can offer rewards to the player/students such as Edelgard's Birthday, a Magical Power Fluctuation, a Mirage Fish 'sighting', a Choir Festival and so on.
- Instruction Energy is used to teach classes per week and increases in capacity as your experiences as a teacher improve, while Strolling Energy is required for wandering around the School Grounds with as well. Motivation Energy are the smiling faces shown by each character that limits how much instruction they can receive per week.
- By answering a student's question correctly and using them well in battle, their Motivation Energy can increase as well.
- There are four possible outcomes from instruction that can effect the amount of Ability Experience a student can gain.
- Goals can increase the effectiveness of instruction in certain areas and can be unlocked through interaction with the student.
- Group Activities are useful in building Ability Experience as well as increasing Support Levels between students, as well as providing other rewards such as Exp, Gold, Items and increases to the various Energies.
- Those Abilities that have those 3 stars on the side are a character's hidden potential (i.e. they're initially mediocre to bad at it, but with training it can become stronger than even their proficiencies).Backstory/Lorewise we now have the following:
- Something called 'The Heroes War' that featured Saint Serios and the other named Crest dudes Blaiddyd, Riegan, Gloucester, Goneril, Farldarius, and 5 others fought a guy known as the "Liberation King" Nemesis (there's a high chance that the Valkyrie + Belmondo peeps seen in Feb's Direct are Serios and Nemesis; especially given that the latter shares the same Crest marking as Byleth and Sothis; on top of all of them using that same sword).
- Serios also went on to found the Adrestian Empire from which Faerghus broke off of, followed by the Leicester Alliance.Also, the last unnamed house student has a name at last. Ingrid. Blonde girl of the Blue Lions.
An interesting observation I've made recently is that if the Crest Mural depicts Saint Seiros in the bottom center with the sword. Its interesting that the sword in the mural looks considerably closer to the sword used by that tan blonde swordswoman from Feb's Direct than Byleth's ?? Crest Sword.
Edit: Welp. NoE may have let it slip that
the church is indeed the badguys.
As promised, I've separated out the bios that have accumulated and restricted them to just the students for the sake of making your choice between Griffondor, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff easier. (as well as some Archtype comments):- Black Eagles -
Edelgard: Imperial Princess of the Adrestian Empire and the house leader of the Black Eagles, she gives off a sense of nobility and dignity and calmly assesses her situation and those around her.
Hubert: The Tactician of the Black Eagles, and the eldest son of the Marquis Vestra(?). He has served Edelgard from a young age and will do whatever it takes to eliminate obstacles to her. According to Edelgard, he is calculating but honorable. (Is a Soren/Jakob expy?)
Dorothea: Once studied singing at the Mittlefrank Operahouse and admires Manuella. She feels uncomfortable about being the only commoner within the Black Eagles, but generally tries to get along all the same. (The only other inexperienced singer in the series to date has been Shigure but I don't think they were going for that. Maybe she'll be more like Fates' Layla. :v )
Ferdinand: Eldest son of the Ageir Dukedom, a line that has long since served as chancellors to the Imperial Court, which brings him a great sense of pride. Hates losing. Especially in regards to Edelgard's natural talents. (...but Edelgard is Red, not Green)
Bernadetta: Only daughter of the Dukedom of Varley. Extremely shy around others and prefers to remain secluded in her room to pursue her hobbies. (hikomori much?)
Caspar: The second son of Count Bergliez family. As he's not expected to succeed his father as the head of his house, he instead focuses on training himself as a martial artist. Considered hotheaded but possesses a strong sense of justice. ("Go! Go! Power Ranger!")
Petra: The granddaughter of the King of Brigget, a suzarian island nation to the Empire. As a token of their allegiance, Petra was sent as an exchange student to the Officer's Academy. She's not yet fluent in the region's dialect, but is committed to its mastery. ("Ve vish to fight vith you.")
Linhardt: TBA
- Blue Lions -
Dimitri: Crown Prince of the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus and house leader of the Blue Lions. He's a sincere and chivalrous young man who occasionally displays a hint of darkness beneath his demeanor.
Dedue: A peasant from Daska and a servant of Dimitri. Owes a great debt to Dimitri and is willing to die for him. Calm and gentle in spite of his stern and stoic face. (Is basically Benny but someone's servant now.)
Felix: The eldest son of House Fraldarius and refers to his longtime friend Dimitri as 'Boar'. Tries to act like a lone wolf and will duel anyone he perceives as a challenge. (Our resident Navarre apparently.)
Mercedes: Daughter of an Imperial Noble house, but left that behind to study Magic as a commoner within the Kingdom of Faergus. Generally friendly and caring to those around her, and claims that she's "a bit older" than your average student. Also good friends with Annette. (has 'Sickly/Dead Mom walking' vibes in spades)
Ashe: Adopted son of Lord Ronato of the Casperd region. He hold Lord Ronato in high regard, especially for sending him to the academy, despite his past as a commoner. He studies hard in order to follow in his adopted father's footsteps. (I have no strong opinions one way or the other; there's always one in these games)
Annette: The niece of the Baron Dominic. A graduate of the Faergus' Mage Academy and a long time friend with Mercedes. Cheerful and hardworking but occasionally takes missteps that lead to failure. (its too bad Mercie's hair isn't Green because we haven't had a female/female Red/Green Cavalier duo yet)
Sylvain: Successor of House Gautier after his older brother was removed from succession for lack of a Crest. Generally acts like an older brother type, but fancies himself a ladies man. (return of the Sain/Inigo/Soleil)
Ingrid: TBA
- Golden Deer -
Claude: Heir of House Riegan, the leading house of the Leicester Alliance and house leader of the Golden Deer. He seems easygoing enough, but will occasionally show a side you shouldn't let your guard down around.
Lorentz: Eldest son of House Gloucester, and snobbish noble who can occasionally reveal his serious nature. Tries to make moves on the ladies with little to no success. (Is basically Virion minus being the Archiest Archer.)
Hilda: The only daughter of the Goneril Dukedom. Has a tendency towards slacking off and sweet-talking others thanks to having been spoiled by her father and brother. She comes off as a noble lady and enjoys fashion and fancy things. (FE7's Serra, down to the hair.)
Raphael: Son of a Merchant family of Leicester. He's had a hard upbringing due to losing his parents in an accident. Generally optimistic, and spends more time worrying about what's on the menu and hitting the gym than he does on lectures and hitting the books. (voted most likely to get left behind to watch the castle)
Lysithea: Eldest daughter of the house of Count Cordelia. She's 15 yrs old as the youngest student admitted in this year. A magical prodigy but is still a hard worker despite her many talents though she hates being treated like a child. (the Ricken x Cordelia ship isn't my first choice, but at least she isn't just another Ricken clone like Hayato was)
Ignace: The second son of a merchant family within the Alliance. Since his elder brother is inheriting the family business, he chooses to become a knight to please his parents, despite feelings towards wanting to aspire to something else. Has a kind demeanor and a disposition towards nature and art. (shota quota reached)
Marianne: The foster daughter of the Duke of Edmund. Deeply pious. And though she rarely speaks in the presence of others, she is at home with nature and communing with birds and animals. (she too took lessons from Mordecai)
Leonie: TBA
Holy crap.
I guess 3 routes in one game is much better than the Fates split. Hopefully gameplay is good enough for replays.
At this point I'm going on media blackout, I think. I've seen and read enough, and there's never been a question of whether I'll be buying the game or not.
Just a little over a month to go!
When can I buy this on the Eshop? I traded in some games and the store sold eshop cards so I got that so i could get Three Houses digitally. However I can't buy it on the eshop yet. When does Nintendo put them up? I know the game isn't out for a month but I would still like to see the icon....
Planning to do the same. Just got Amazon money for Father's Day and want to use it on eShop for this.
Weird, I just assumed it was up for preorder since it has been included in the voucher thing.
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