Enduin

I would be willing to bet there is a fourth in the capital of of Adrestia given it's importance and long history with the Church and everything. There could also be another at the Monastery but I think that's a good deal less likely for there to be two, unless Rhea is in charge of the academy and its goings on while the other oversees the more day to day religious aspects.

Three; Western Church, Eastern Church and Garreg Mach Monastery.

I could seem them having a smaller general FE direct about a week or two out from release just to debut the reveal trailer and more specifically to showcase some FEHx3H crossover promotions what not. But that's about it.

I would expect a trailer of some kind in the direct and a Tree House Gameplay segment at the very least. Maybe even demos on the show floor for attendees.

That's cause Musou games are the definition of budget HD titles. Not a whole lot in the pot for detailed and polished graphics when you're averaging 200-700k sales for an HD game with dozens of playable characters and hundreds of enemies on screen.

Graphics in general are pretty poor if not outright bad. The only thing in that screenshot, and most of the ones from the Famitsu article for that matter, that don't look poor or bad is the UI and character art. Why they didn't go for a more abstract and artistic graphics style and instead went for more detailed/realistic is kind of baffling to me for a variety of reasons. This was never going to be a big budget graphical showcase. Neither IS or KT have the pedigree or experience with high quality HD graphics so why not do what other series have done in similar situations to cover up those graphical shortcomings and shoot for style over fidelity? Like Valkyria Chronicles or Ni No Kuni, even Persona.

Any Support with Byleth/Bylese would simply be a largely one sided affair like Confidants/Social Links in Persona. They do all the talking and we get a few minor dialogue options to choose from to provide out "input" into the conversation. Works pretty well for the most part, even with romances. Which is not uncommon for Silent Characters, while they may not actually talk in conversations they still make noises, mostly in combat and in some case even say a couple words as bark during attacks, which I believe we've already seen be the case in that one JP bus commercial.

I think it could be a good thing. But it really all depends on how things are handled. An important thing to note is that the Main Character doesn't necessarily have to be the Protagonist of the story. With the Three Lords being positioned as quite important I think it could work out very well if they function as the Protagonist of the story. We'll see and experience the game from the POV of Byleth, but whichever Lord we choose to teach could be the main focal point and driver of the plot. Byleth's connection to Sothis pretty much ensures they'll have a key role in the story somehow, but that doesn't mean all the events and actions within the story must come from Byleth. Seeing as the Three Lords are the future leaders of their respective nations it makes sense that they'll have an active and vested interest in any events that will affect them both on personal level as well as a sense of duty. As such they are in a prime position to provide that emotional investment as well as show a proper character arc and growth as the story advances. Where Byleth being Silent could falter is if they are treated as the Protagonist and both the story and how events are driven completely revolves around and is born from them. It can really undermine your story when the most important person in the story that everything is focused around isn't really capable of growth or emotional investment in events as they unfold.

My thinking is that Byleth's mother could have been seen as some threat, Jeralt is sent to eliminate her but she has a child or pregnant when he finds her. Jeralt learns of some truths about the Church and decides to protect them. Either she dies then and there and he covers up the fact there was a child or he covers up the fact that she wasn't eliminated and shortly there after retires to protect them. Then she dies sometime after or he just takes care of Byleth alone from the start. Fast forward ~20 years and the Church doesn't know of Byleth at all aside form the fact that Jeralt apparently had a kid after he left. Byleth gets powers and the Church takes an interest in them as a result. They may have suspicions but if Jeralt is at all capable they're probably not fully clued in. And in the event they do know who Byleth is exactly once they get their powers the fact that they're completely naive to the Church may make them think they can manipulate and use Byleth for their own ends. Their Mother may have been a threat because of what she knew, but since Byleth was raised by Jeralt and is ignorant to the true actions or intentions of the Church could be seen as more pliable for their purposes and not someone they need to eliminate immediately.

Hopefully they have articles with some Western publications coming soon too. Would kind of suck if they're just waiting until E3 to start their marketing outside of Japan. The M/W/F Tweets are nice, but we're not even getting localized versions of the video portions to see how the VO is.

Get's sent on a mission to eliminate some threat to the Church. Finds it's a mysterious woman who has a newborn or is preggo. Learns some truth about the Church that upends his world, covers up for her and leaves the Church in order to take care of her and the kid and ensure the Church doesn't find out they got away. He is sent on a mission and either kills said woman or she dies of sickness leaving behind her child. Jeralt is given the duty of taking care of this special child by the Church and leaves in order to limit suspicion about their involvement or the importance of this child. Simply fell in love with a woman, leaves just to be with her, she dies and he raises their kid. Never questions the Church one way or the other. Nothing special about any of it.

This right here. I want there to be as little variation between the House choices as possible. Just make one really good story with no deviations or variations and we are just picking who we'd like to customize a bit more. I mean realistically I wish there was one fixed story that didn't change at all based on our House choice, but each House had dramatically different roles within that story. Like House A was the heroes, B the bad guys and C the undecided. So our House choice resulted in seeing the whole story from an entirely different point of view, but didn't change the actual events or ultimate outcome. But given how special and important Byleth/Sothis seem to be to the story I don't see that being realistic in the slightest . Their power and presence is the kind of thing that would dramatically tip the scale, much like Corrin's choice in Fates completely changing the entire course of the war and story.

Maybe, but probably best to not expect much. Also have to consider the possibility they do show something there but it may not be uploaded for the rest of us to see immediately. Conventions and live events still often have exclusive or timed exclusive trailers like that to reward attendees and make their experience feel worth the price.

If they're smart they won't even need to really reframe the Class Exams at all. It's supposed to be a Military Academy so you would think they would follow similar processes that the Military does. Once they leave the Academy that wouldn't really need to change anything. To gain a Promotion and increase your military rank you must pass their examination. Stuff like the Teacher mechanics and running Classes, Group Projects and Tutoring are a bit more complicated but could be theoretically left as is or just reframed as Training, Duties, Sparring or some such.

I don't see how Time Skips would be at all problematic. Showing them age and develop should be a positive. If handled correctly you would get all the exposure and interaction out of the initial roster in the pre-time skip period and the time skip would allow you to see how these characters you know and like have grown and matured and then gen new stories and insights into them based on the last two-ish decades. People love to see time skips at the end of shows and movies series where they get glimpses into the future lives of characters, this would be that same thing but expanded upon as we then get a major amount of time to actually interact with them further. I personally still hope there is a time skip for that very fact. Just not a two-ish decade skip to enable kids, but a few years between the academy period ending and the major conflict in the story.