As teased yesterday, we’re seeing the next Valentine’s themed banner, in the Love of a King banner, and we sure knew the units, but we didn’t have the details on their skills. Well, we don’t need to wait too long to get them, as the trailer here just so happens to cover them!
Not only are we getting the units teased during the FEH Channel yesterday, in Gustav, Alfonse, Henriette and Lif/Thrasir as a Duo, but we’re seeing some doozies of skills in this batch. There are indeed the Cover-type skills, D/R Near Save 3 and A/R Far Save 3, on both Gustav and Henriette, which allow a unit to tag in and take damage for another nearby unit, but they’re also inheritable. We’re also getting the next -Form skill, in Def/Res Form, and two new inheritable tomes in the enhanced self-healing and debuffing based on nearby allies Amity Blooms+ and Unity Blooms+. That doesn’t even begin to describe the unique skills featured on the new Duo unit, of which, the most notable is the PRF C-skill that blocks Healing on targets.
This event will run from February 4 through March 4 (11p PT on both accounts).
Summoners, it’s that time of year again, in the form of the anniversary of Fire Emblem Heroes! We’re at its 4th anniversary, and have quite a bit of news to take in, courtesy of Feh’s latest Feh Channel. If you didn’t get to watch it, click here. I’ll do my best to summarize the key points though, assuming you skimmed the video, or can’t watch it quite yet.
Chrom and Byleth (F) received third place positions by a fairly sizable margin. For full results, click here.
Marth finally got his day, as well as Eirika, bringing two more Lords into the fray of Choose Your Legends victors, but they both found themselves in 2nd place, following Fire Emblem Three Houses’ Gatekeeper and Marianne. At first, I thought that the Gatekeeper votes were going to be just for kicks, but I’m stunned to see that he ended up victorious, even over short-end-of-the-stick Marth after all these years. I’m not dissappointed, however; I have great hopes for these units in their debut, and hope that you do, too!
The next A Hero Rises event starts today, in which Summoners can log onto a website (click Here) and vote for a beloved unit. The 8 units that win this contest, become a part of their own Voting Gauntlet featured later this year, and the winner of that Voting Gauntlet becomes a free gift unit to all Summoners.
The polls are open for 1 week, starting today, and the Voting Gauntlet itself will run from Feb 26 – Mar 4. The gifted unit will be distributed on Mar 10. Furthermore, the Top-4 Heroes in the Voting Gauntlet will be part of their own Summoning event, complete with Spark on 40. This will likely occur in March of this year.
It’s hard to believe that we’re at our fifthChoose Your Legends event, but with the success of Fire Emblem Heroes, it’s really good to see!
Simply visit the CYL website, log into your Nintendo account, and do a search for the unit you’d like to vote for. You can select a hero once every 7 days, (running from today, until January 28, to 7pm PT). That said, don’t forget to vote on a particular day, or you’ll miss your shot for the day’s vote.
If you vote three or six times, you can earn up to two special mobile wallpapers.
I’d like to once again, share that I think it’s wonderful that Gatekeeper is available
With the usual caveats of the previous CYL events, previous winners from Rounds 1 – 4 cannot win a second time. Additionally, certain units’ votes will be consolidated into one for that character, such as all Marths, all Gharnefs, all Finns, all Byleths, all Jills, etc. The full list of those units is listed here.
If you’re a fan of Fire Emblem, then you’re familiar with the franchise’s many notable features; a tile based combat system, a diverse and colorful cast, weapon triangles, and permanent unit death. The franchise has been around for decades, celebrating its 30th anniversary not even one full year ago, and has celebrated its successes with its increasing fanbase across the globe. As the games have developed in quality and complexity over time, we’ve seen changes that pretty much everyone can agree on, that being the inclusion of character voicing within gameplay. Voice-over showcasing really picked up with the release of Fire Emblem Path of Radiance for the Nintendo Gamecube in 2005, but between the future releases, notably Awakening, Fates, Shadows of Valentia, Heroes and Three Houses, the explosion of popularity with the games can definitely be in part, attributed to the quality of the voice talent found within these many games.
Whether you’re a fan of the new direction that the games have taken or prefer the more classic and traditional feel of the games themselves, the voice over work has been universally praised, and for good reason. The voice actors themselves have been extremely involved with the community, helping out with charity drives, social activity awareness, promoting and teaching the ins and outs of the field, and even just being friends with each other and those that support them.
Cormag, drawn by Fire Emblem character and Cipher artist Soeda Ippei
One such figure in the community, who had been handling voice-over work since 2004 in general, before diving into the world of Fire Emblem in 2019, is Brad Venable. If you’re not familiar with his work, he joined the Three Houses cast as Kostas, the game’s first boss enemy, as well as Nader, an extremely important instructional master to Claude, with a plot element that I won’t get too into. If you haven’t played the award-winning Switch release, you can also find him voicing Fire Emblem Heroes’ Merlinus and Cormag (a surefire memory to those who celebrate the Game Boy Advance days of Fire Emblem). I personally love his performance as Merlinus, though I think he had a soft spot for the “True Protagonist of Three Houses” (Kostas).
Despite the nature of my work, I myself did not get to interact with him, but I did have him on a short list to get to know him, as he definitely seemed like a well-respected member of the voice acting community as a whole. Seeing his Twitter account quickly helped me realize just how much he loved his career, and the people he worked with, and if you do a search for recent posts featuring him on Twitter, you’ll see just as much support from not only peers in his field, but fans of his many roles. My time on the Serenes Forest team has truly helped me learn to appreciate and want to get to know the people behind the games that have improved my life, and I’m fortunate to have had the chance to be a part of this community, because seeing this much love and respect has put a small smile back on my face.
Kostas
Nader, on Right (with Claude)
It’s always hard to see someone that you respect pass away, and it’s especially hard when you connected with them on more than just a professional level, but not only Brad’s work but Brad’s heart has touched the lives of many, and I only hope that if there’s one thing that you can take away from this, it’s that you connect with those that matter to you, and let them know that you appreciate them. Whether it be a friend, family member, or just an acquaintance or idol that you look up to or have a good memory with…let them know that you’re proud to be a part of their lives.
