My Castle Analysis (Part 2)



Continued from Part 1.

Part 2: Interacting with your comrades

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As briefly mentioned at the start, My Castle is inhabited by the game’s playable characters. When they’re not managing shops or other facilities, they will be standing around somewhere in town.

Of course, players can speak to the characters if they want, although unless there’s an exclamation mark over their hand, nothing special really happens, besides some idle conversation.

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From the available footage, conversing with characters works very similarly to the Barracks in Awakening, with characters often receiving single-chapter stat boosts (such as Crimson, above, receiving a boost to Skill and Resistance) or picking up rare items (like Aqua finding “Gunter’s Remedy”).

Just like the Barracks, there can be conversations between two characters too (and not just with the Avatar), if they’re standing next to one another it seems. In the previous game, if the two characters were support partners, their support relationship improved a little; maybe the same happens here.

Hot Spring

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Besides bumping into characters in town, there are other places you can meet and interact with them… such as in the hot spring. Yes, you read that right: you can have a steamy hot spring in your own castle!

Now, hot springs feature a lot in anime and games based on anime–and in fact, Awakening had a DLC chapter that took place in a Japanese hot spring, so it’s not completely unusual.

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Inside, players can relax with their comrades. Or stare at them at different angles… So far, it seems you can only share the pool with same-gender characters. Later there is a scene where Kazahana embarrassingly chases out a male Avatar, suggesting the idea of “shared pools” doesn’t exist.

(Of course, if you’re a perv… I mean, “curious person”, you could just make an opposite-gender Avatar.)

For the more… level-headed, there also appear to be some form of special “hot spring” conversations, perhaps similar to the bath conversations in Suikoden (as if My Castle wasn’t already heavily inspired by Suikoden).

Lilith’s Shrine

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Your comrades aren’t limited to people it seems, as inside the Lilith’s Shrine, players can tend to a baby(?) Azure Dragon known as Lilith.

By feeding Lilith food (resources), it will gain experience and Level Up like a normal unit. However its stats appear to reflect the food it’s given; for example, after eating Fish (which has Speed properties), its Speed increases by 1.

My Room

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Next… if the hot springs weren’t steamy enough, the game takes thing up a notch, or ten. As divulged, My Room is the Avatar’s personal space, but there’s more to it than that.

Within, players can “invite (people)” (top) or customise the Avatar’s hairstyle (bottom). Inviting does what it suggests: it invites a playable character to the Avatar’s room.

“Inviting” is said to improve “relationships” between characters, so presumably it is related to the support system. Of note, some characters in the invitation list have a heart icon next to their sprite, which may indicate when a character can be invited or if a special event can take place?

In the example, the player invites Felicia over and then… “Fire Emblem Amie” occurs. That’s obviously not the official name for this particular “activity”, but it sums up what it is.

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If you haven’t played the recent Pokemon games, “Pokemon Amie” is a mini-game where you pet Pokemon by rubbing their body with your stylus to improve their affection. …And that is exactly what’s going on here, but with the faces of Fire Emblem characters instead.

Now I’m certain the fandom has literally imploded (again) with this new revelation and I’m very interested to know the developers’ reason for including it. Perhaps it’s related to the rejected “kiss scenes” in Awakening?

My personal theory is that the Avatar is an embodiment of the dragon deity/deities worshiped by Hoshido and Nohr and it’s considered a blessing to be touched by him/her.

Whatever the case, it seems any character (male or female) can be, ahem, rubbed. So nobody can accuse the developers of being sexist or anything at least.

Part 3: Meeting other players

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The third and final part of the trailer explains the game’s StreetPass features, which are based on Awakening’s, but with many refinements.

After a successful StreetPass tag, StreetPass visitors will materialise in a designated plaza in My Castle.

Speaking to these visitors opens up a menu not too dissimilar to the one in Awakening. You can check the visitor’s profile card, team stats, battle them in your castle, their castle, visit them or dismiss them.

In particular, “visiting” refers to visiting the other player’s castle and you can freely roam around like inside your own castle. So you can speak to the other player’s characters and peruse their facilities.

Are you sure you aren't Severa...?

Are you sure you aren’t Severa…?

The best part of this feature is that Hoshido players and Nohr players can StreetPass each other. So while some characters and items may be exclusive to Hoshido, for example, a Nohr player can obtain them by visiting a Hoshido castle.

The example shown has a Hoshido player visiting a Nohr player. During this visit, some fans have been quick to notice a new character, Luna, who greatly resembles Awakening’s Severa.

Hoshido and Nohr have different weaponry.

Hoshido and Nohr have different weaponry.

Soon afterwards, the player visits a Nohrian armoury and the trailer emphasises how the inventories are drastically different in the Hoshidan armoury and the Nohrian armoury and how you can use StreetPass to buy from the other nation’s armoury.

Note: If you’re curious about the weapons shown, I’ve listed them in the Weapons page.

Belka stands near a Sapphire gathering spot.

Belka stands near a Sapphire gathering spot.

If you don’t want to spend gold abroad, there’s also the opportunity to gather resources too. Some of the resources appear to be exclusive to Hoshido or Nohr, so players will probably want to make the most of their time there.

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Sight-seeing not for you? You can always entertain your visitors with a good, old fashioned brawl. This time, StreetPass battles take place in My Castle–either yours or the visitor’s.

Similar to in Awakening, after the battle, the visitor will leave your castle–and it’s likely the same occurs if you visit their castle. So there may be a dilemma of whether you want to fight the visitor or check out their castle.

To make things fairer for both parties, players can choose to play with a handicap or not or apply a restriction on stats on the opposing team.

Nooo! They destroyed your harem room!

Nooo! They destroyed your harem room!

The conditions for StreetPass battles are to rout the enemy, while defending the castle’s throne. Besides attacking your units, the enemy can attack your town’s buildings, although it’s said any damage done is reverted afterwards.

Curiously, Lilith the little dragon assists you as a NPC; in the footage, it heals the Avatar’s HP. So having it at a high Level would be useful for StreetPass battles at the least.

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Ryouma is sure to be a force to be reckoned with.

Not mentioned in the dedicated trailer, players can adjust various settings for their StreetPass team or, as the game calls it, “Defence (team)” beforehand.

This includes the position of your units in My Castle, whether they’re paired up or not, simple AI options (staying still, guarding or charging forward) or even which group they’re in (from a selection of 3).

All of this combined should make for more challenging StreetPass battles compared to Awakening’s “Pair Up and then steam-roll the opponent into oblivion” battles.

Nohr players can probably earn Dragon Vein Points at least.

Nohr players can probably earn Dragon Vein Points at least.

Although characters can gain experience from StreetPass battles, this is only true for the Hoshido campaign. If you’re playing the Nohr campaign, no experience is awarded, so you can’t rely on StreetPass as a free, grinding zone.

At the end of the battle, a pair of hearts appear above Avatar and Felicia and the two characters are listed as the MVP–both clear signs that the support system is back (although detailed support conversations have yet to be confirmed).

Below the MVP, there is a gauge that seems to be for Dragon Vein Points. Perhaps having more buildings intact at the end awards more points? By the way, Dragon Vein Points can be obtained in regular battles too, which is good news for players with limited StreetPass opportunities.

Can we have a whole army of Aquas?

Can we have a whole army of Aquas?

Furthermore, after emerging victorious, players can register any one character from the opposing team into their Avatar Logbook, not just the other player’s Avatar.

To clarify: This means you can “recruit” characters outside of your campaign, but they will likely function as “guest” units and have limited conversations and interaction options.

In the example shown, the player decides to add Elfie to their logbook, but they could also have picked another character, such as the Avatar, Felicia, Elise, Cyrus, Harold, Zero, Odin, Aqua or Nyx.

Zero is the unit with the eye-patch on the opposing side.

Zero is the unit with the eye-patch on the opposing side.

From the list, Zero and Odin are characters we haven’t seen before or don’t know much about. Zero appears to be a bow-wielding Thief, while Odin may be a male Dark Mage.

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The strangest thing though is that Odin, from his map sprite at least, is a dead-ringer for Owain from Awakening. Ignoring the different hair colours (which is a result of Owain inheriting his father’s hair colour), their hairstyle is almost an identical match.

Plus considering Luna who looks like a clone of Severa (another child from Awakening), I have to wonder if there’s some kind of conspiracy involved. Perhaps the developers wanted to put Awakening’s children in the main story this time, instead of shoved in the sidequests?

That’s everything for the formal explanations, but at the end, the trailer unleashes a whole load of short sequences at once, presumably in an attempt to melt your brain.

The 12 Deadlords sure get around...

The 12 Deadlords sure get around…

One interesting thing is there’s a shop where you can purchase “Einherjar” cards, like the ones found in Awakening. These cards act as guest characters, so they have limited interactions, but are useful for filling gaps in your army.

This time, however, the Einherjars include playable characters (such as the Avatar, Felicia and Cyrus) and generic units (with the same names as the 12 Deadlords…).

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Another thing that stands out is footage of Cyrus taking down the “Mouth of Truth” monster seen in the initial trailer.

In the May 2015 Direct, this monster is referred to as a “Golem” and appears as a facility in My Castle. Perhaps it acts as a punching bag to gain experience in the Hoshido route?

Amiibo support

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Strangely not present in the dedicated trailer, the Direct elaborated on the Amiibo support for the game, which is related to My Castle.

By scanning in the Amiibos of Marth, Ike, Robin or Lucina (using a new 3DS or 3DS Amiibo adapter), that character will appear in your castle.

Details are scarce beyond that, but at the very least it is possible to battle the four heroes and even recruit them into your team (as a guest character, presumably).

(The new portraits and battle models are very nice too.)

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That’s all the key details I’ve picked up, but there’s no doubt a lot more hidden within the 9:45 minutes of footage.

When I have time, I’ll cover all the weapon and item details separately. However, if you’re impatient, many of us are discussing all the nitty-gritty details on the forums!

Also, if you want to understand the trailer yourself, shadowofchaos has kindly provided a translated version of the trailer here! (Knock yourself out; shadowofchaos probably already did when he made it!)