A new Fire Emblem is just on the horizon, and I thought it might be a good idea to share with some of you some of the changes the newest game has made since the last one. There are a couple of fans on this site so I felt it merited a thread. Anyway, here you guys go:-The big change is that the game is split into three distinct parts: Birthright, Conquest, and Revelations. The core gameplay is the same, but there are a number of differences between them.
--Birthright: This one plays very similarly to the style of Awakening. There is an unlimited amount of gold and exp thanks to being able to battle in Skirmishes, not unlike what you could do in Awakening. The majority of the story missions are also kept basic with its victory conditions either being Rout the enemy or Defeat the Boss.
--Conquest: This one plays more like classic Fire Emblem titles, meant for more experienced players. It is far more structured and linear with no way to earn gold and EXP outside of story missions. There are far more victory conditions as well, such as defending a base, breaking through enemy lines, and even turn restrictions.
--Revelations: A mixture between both styles and has a mid-level difficulty (harder than Birthright, but easier than Conquest) that also ties the whole story together. There is still a variety of victory conditions like Conquest, but the majority are still Rout and Defeat Boss. Skirmishes are included in this mode, and any exclusive classes and buildings from the other versions are all included here with almost every single character being recruitable as well.
-Avatar (Corrin) creation is more robust, with more hair style, colour, and more than before. Additionally, females can get a little hair decoration for some added flare, and special equipment can be equipped to your units (not just Corrin) to not only add some more flair, but also to gain some stat bonuses. The only thing removed is that both male and females lose one build (2 down from 3 in Awakening).
-You get your own little customizable little place known as My Castle, where you can build many different areas to better help in your adventure.
-Pair Up and Dual System returns with a new system involving stances: Attack Stance and Guard Stance. Like in Awakening, these can give an extra attack/block all damage when active, but only one or the other can be applied at a time. Additionally, enemies can also use these Stances against you, something that wasn't possible in Awakening.
--Attack Stance: You will be in Attack Stance if you are standing one tile next to the attacking unit. The Support Unit will always add in one extra attack after the Main unit attacks, regardless of Support level. The only time they can attack more than once is if they are equipped with a special weapon like something from the Brave series. Skills are not activated by the Support unit and they can miss. Enemies with a Support in Guard Stance will block all Attack Stance support attacks.
--Guard Stance: You will be in Guard Stance when you do the actual Pair Up. A unit enters a supportive role and can no longer attack. If they Pair Up with another unit, that main unit gains stat boosts while the support unit is in Guard Stance. They gain further boosts if they have a high Support level. Dual attacks from enemies with Attack Stance will always be blocked while a support unit is in Guard Stance. Combined, the two units will have a Shield Meter that can go up to 10 increments. For each attack that is not blocked, the meter goes up by 2. Once it hits 10, the next attack will always be blocked, regardless of Hit Chance.
-Skills return, but with a slight variation: Every single unit (minus amiibo units) will have one fixed skill exclusive to that unit that cannot be unequipped. However, they still maintain 5 additional skill slots for whatever you please.
-Reclassing is a thing again. However, the Second Seal has been dropped in favor of three new Seals: Heart Seal, Buddy Seal, and Marriage Seal. The Heart Seal works basically like the Second Seal, except it does not reset your level to 1 so power leveling via Second Seals won't break the game anymore. But do not fret over skills if you change to a promoted class; All skills from the unpromoted branch will still be learned via leveling up. The Buddy Seal lets you reclass a unit into whatever classes they have an A+ Support with (a new form of Support that can only be used on one character, much like marriage. Unlike marriage, this is not one sided, so a character who is an A+ by some other character can A+ somebody else). The Marriage Seal lets you reclass a unit into one of their spouse's classes.
-Another new seal, the very expensive Eternal Seals, will permanently raise a promoted unit's level cap by 5, so you can still continue to level and improve/gain new skills.
-Child Seals are also new to the game, which are used on child characters that you recruit so that their stats will match those of the rest of your team so they don't end up falling behind. They can even be promoted using this. This is especially useful during Conquest since you can't actually grind in that one.
-Weapon Durability is 90% gone! (Staves still have limited uses) To help balance this change, higher grade weapons will have detrimental stats which can be fixed at a forge in your base.
-Forged weapons are still a thing, but you must spend resources and materials instead of simply throwing as much gold as possible for your weapon of choice.
-Knives make a return from the Tellius games but are under a new weapon class: Hidden Weapon. Hidden weapons have short and long range attacks, much like Tomes, and can apply stat debuffs to their target for a few turns (ie. lowered STR or lowered RES).
-Marriage and children is a thing again. This time, however, children are determined by the father as opposed to the mother like in Awakening. Spouses can share their respective classes and secondary classes with each other via Marriage Seals. Children will also adopt their parents' classes. A player's Avatar (Corrin) can also be engaged in a same-sex marriage if they so desire with Niles (male/Conquest) or Rhajet (female/Birthright).
-For those who purchased the Special Edition or the downloadable eShop version of the title, you are granted 9 total save slots to experiment with all the different scenarios. Those who purchase the standalone Birthright and Conquest copies have their standard 3 save files.
-Enemy Units can be Captured assuming the player has opened up a Jail at their castle and defeats an enemy with a unit that has the correct Skill. They may then spend resources to try to convince these jailed units to join their army. They can even capture some Bosses! However, characters that are exclusive to a specific side cannot be captured. Jailed units who join your armies can be used like normal units, but they cannot form any Supports and do not have a secondary class. Promotion can still happen, however. Non-boss units get randomly generated names.
-New style of weapons (such as Katanas, Naginatas, etc.) are added to the mix of standard Fire Emblem fare. These have slightly different stats from standard swords, lances, etc., but otherwise function the same.
-The vast majority of classes are now unisex, which means, yes, even males can now ride beautiful pegasi and females can be hulking Berserkers. Many of these classes were renamed to reflect this, such as the aforementioned Pegasus Knight being changed to Sky Knight. However, some DLC classes are still gender locked.
-Every royalty character, this includes Corrin, are capable of using Dragon Vein, which changes the terrain on the map. You know you can use this when you see a part of the map highlighted.
-A new mode called Phoenix Mode is introduced, which is even easier than Casual Mode. Like in Casual Mode, there is no permadeath, but instead of units retreating from the battle only to return the next fight, any units who's HP reaches 0 will be instantly revived with full health on their next turn. This does not affect the story in any way and is meant for those who just want to see how the story plays out. You can change to Phoenix Mode at any time if the game is proving to be too challenging, but once you change to Phoenix Mode, you cannot return to Classic Mode.
-The Weapon Triangle got a shake up! It now looks like this: Sword and Magic > Axe and Bow > Lance and Hidden Weapons > Sword and Magic.
-amiibo support is in the game, allowing you to bring over the Fire Emblem characters that were playable in Super Smash Bros.: Marth, Ike, Robin, and Lucina. Not only can you use them as a unit, you will also get a unique item from them. Whether or not Roy and Corrin will work as well remains to be seen, but that is doubtful due to their late addition to Smash's roster as DLC.