Calico

Updated with Felix's strengths and weaknesses from the new video on the website.

@SatsumaFSoysoy Thanks!

Does anyone know what the characters are saying here? Probably just variations of, "This food looks good! Let's eat." but I'm still curious.

So the latest Famitsu article has given us a lot more information on the game, but it hasn't confirmed or denied whether or not we'll be able to recruit students from houses besides the one that you start with. It has been revealed that you can interact with and gain support points with characters outside of your chosen house, but what purpose it will serve it currently unknown. Also, a paralogue that features students from different houses has been shown off, but it is currently unknown if both characters will be controllable or if they act as allied units or only appear in story sections. So what are your current thoughts on whether or not we'll be able to recruit students from other houses?

I've noticed that even in this most recent batch of screenshots, they're very deliberately not showing us controlling anyone other than the starting students... Also look, I just noticed that we have a cameo from Heroes!

Hey @Kuki, can you update the OP with a link to the article? It'd be really helpful. There's lots of stuff, and I can't understand most of it, but it seems that there are limited-time bonus chapters that will focus on two different characters? Neat. Also, Ashe looks to be the adopted son of one of the early villains?

Okay, both of those guys look rad as hell. They remind me a lot of some SMT demons. Tbh, I don't have a problem with them looking obviously evil. I think the 3ds era's (can't speak for any other era) problem was indicating characters were evil by making them have darker or unnatural colored skin. Looking forward to learning more about the school activities.

If the level cap doesn't reset at all upon promotion to the higher-tier classes, then I'd expect a level cap of 40 or above, nothing lower. Like with Azura and Felica/Jakob in Fates.

Yeah, for some reason people assume that if a boy and a girl are seen near each other they must be in love. It's weird. Holding out hope that Bernadetta's hobby is just reading (we did see her hiding under a book before).

Bernadetta seems cute, but her Japanese voice is soo high-pitched. I'm glad the English version seems to be giving her a less high-pitched voice. Also, please don't let Bernadetta be Nina 2.0. Nina is my least favorite character in Fire Emblem by a mile. I hope her hobby is literally anything else.

While it's certainly possible that Rhea's assistant will be introduced tomorrow because Rhea was also introduced on a Sunday, I wouldn't get your hopes up. The two teachers are also listed as part of the church like Rhea, and were introduced on Saturdays. They might be done introducing non-student characters for now. (Hopefully we'll still get student profiles over the week, though.) Really hoping that the English website gets an update around E3 and not a week before the game releases. Regardless, E3 is only 17 days away and we're guaranteed to get some new info and gameplay there.

I can't remember if we've seen a stat screen yet, but it looks like you can view a character's equipment by clicking on either attack or items. Was this what you were looking for?

@BastienSoul Okay, I see what you mean. Though that doesn't mean that they're going to introduce a girl this week. They could just do two girls in a row at the end. (Though now that you've pointed out the possibility, I do hope we get a girl this week).

??? Doesn't Golden Deer have an equal number of guys and girls? Claud, Raphael, Lorenz, and Ignace vs. Leonie, Hilda, Lysithea and Marianne.

The next student to be revealed will probably be either Raphael or Ignace, to follow the guy-girl-guy pattern. Hopefully one of them will be a commoner this time, as I find it kind of funny that the house that supposedly has more commoners than the rest has only introduced nobles so far. Though I'm more interested in next week's character, as Leonie has my favorite character design so far and we've hardly seen the other two.

Mercedes sounds interesting. Interestingly, Mercedes is shown using a bow in the group shots of the Blue Lions, despite going to the Mage Academy. Maybe magic will also be one of her talents? In the same vein, I kinda hope magic is one of Lorenz' weaknesses, as it'd be funny.

Okay, by searching around the internet I managed to find a website that had the preview pages in a higher quality (thanks fujisan.co.jp), so I grabbed some better pics of the group pictures. It's probably the best we're going to get unless the screenshots are uploaded like with the Famitsu article.

@Hawkwing Lugaru, the game that you used as an example of a violent T-rated game, was never rated by the ESRB. Fire Emblem Fates and Echoes were also rated for blood (animated and mild, respectively) and neither of them were particularly violent. And I have no idea why you'd think they'd increase the violence like that. There would be no point in doing it.

While I don't expect Nintendo Dream will have any new information, I'm still hoping for scans so I can get a higher-definition pic of those group shots. And there may be a few more new screenshots that could indirectly tell us some more information about the game.

Nintendo Dream has some new screenshots at the very least. We can see the scene where you go off to fight bandits like you did with the Black Eagles with the other two houses. Don't know if there are any scans available yet, but I think you can buy it on kindle.

Dude, the game is rated T.

@SushiCat Thanks! Poor Bernadetta, she's just crouched on the floor with a book over her head.

I think the number of strengths and weaknesses each character has is going to vary. Looking at Dedue, who is the only character for which we know all of the strengths and weaknesses, he has four strengths and three weaknesses. But that's just not possible for all characters based on what we've seen. Like, in the screenshot below of Dorothea, she has strengths in swords and reason, and a weakness in faith. Only the levels for riding, flying, and heavy armor aren't visible, and no matter how you fill them in, she wouldn't wind up with four strengths and three weaknesses like Dedue. So I think the amount of strengths and weaknesses vary by character, and they can balance it out by having characters with fewer strengths have fewer weaknesses as well.

Plenty of characters have strengths that start out at an E+ rank, but only Bernadetta appears to have one of her strengths at the lowest possible rank so far. She also doesn't appear to have gained any bonus experience from the activity, which I assume she'd get if the chores work similarly to tutoring. (In the exp. bar at the bottom of the screen, we can see that Bernadetta has 36 exp. until she reaches E+. Going from E to E+ takes 40 exp., and we can thus assume that Bernie gained 4 exp .from the activity. We can also see that Dorothea has 32 exp until she reaches E+, which tells me that this must be her second time completing the activity and she's gaining exp. at the same rate as Bernadetta, and Dorothea doesn't have a strength in heavy armor. So the whole thing is weird.)

The post says that a few local stores posted on social media that the game was ready, which is different than them actually having and selling copies of the game. There's no proof that anyone actually bought a copy from any of those stores and managed to get the game months early.