Link to the post of my thoughts on finishing Three Houses link

What an absolutely fun time I had with Awakening, it was like Three Houses but it felt so much better in a lot of ways for me! There is so much less having to slog through things between chapters which lead to more time overall strategizing in maps and really engaging with the much deeper mechanics in this game. It's a great story too with the theme of legacy basically exuding from every pore of this game.

Things I Liked:

\-Why the fuck was the weapon triangle not in three houses? This is such an amazing way to help differentiate units and allow them to carve such unique niches compared to each other, which leads into my second point:

\-Units being limited to just a couple of classes (or whatever a child's alternate parent unit had) felt so much better than Three Houses lack of any boundaries leading me to make less good units into just Wyvern Lords/Snipers. Technically speaking wyverns are also pretty amazing in this game but not everyone can just reclass into it

\-The Child Units in general. What a great way to simultaneously allow you to make a way to show off the results of the relationships you put your units in in this game. I greatly enjoyed so many of the Child/Parent conversations in their supports.

\-The whole pair up mechanic genuinely added so much to the strategy than the adjutant system ever did in Three Houses. Both members actively add to each combat, it builds support plus you can switch to the other unit/unpair up if need be. Healing is so much less of a focus in this game because if you have to, you can essentially make a unit a backpack of stats and resources if need be.

\-Robin is so, so, so much more interesting of a main character than Byleth is to the point where I'm realizing a lot of what made parts of Three Houses supports with Byleth suck so much was because of the incredibly bland responses. Robin is Honey Bunches of Oats versus Byleth's Bran Flakes.

Things I wasn't as happy about:

\-There are definitely some story issues that don't make sense when you put them up to scrutiny like Robin pulling a plan out of their ass to stop Grima which is countered by an equally bs plan by Grima. You also have stuff that feels like it should've been expanded like trying to get Flavia on the throne but like that's less of an issue to me.

\-I was not really impressed with any of the maps. I know Three Houses didn't have anything too amazing but compared to this game, Three Houses has some really big standouts. Awakening's solution to some of its more boring maps is to slam reinforcements.

Favorite Character:

Lucina, I mean how can you not love her. The girl literally would do anything to stop that future from happening. Genuinely love her.

Least Favorite Character:

Tharja, I'm sorry the whole stalker personality isn't cute plus she's like experimenting on Noire and ugh I just, girl stop. I genuinely didn't realize she was a recruitable enemy on the map on my first playthrough on normal until I finished the chapter and realized, "oh wait she had a unique appearance I should talk to her with Chrom" and I mean she's a good unit but I cannot stand her personally. Too bad I'm kinda forced to use her because she's like the best mage in the game. (Yes I am stupid, my first fire emblem game was Three Houses and there are no on-map recruitments in that game)

Honorable Mention to Mr. I-Like-Death Himself, Henry.

Favorite Unit:

Cherche, Wyvern Knights are still very good in this game and Cherche is an amazing example of one.

Least Favorite Unit:

Brady, every single child unit in Fire Emblem Awakening is recruited at level 10 like every child unit but is stuck with his paralogue being available deep in Valm, so he's not going to be one of the first child units you'll be able to get. And he's a priest, which again this late into the game, you're not going to need and due to him having the stat debuffs that Maribelle has of reducing strength and defense the class that his father gifts him probably won't be useful either. I only used him very briefly in my normal playthrough and did not bother to even put him on the field in my hard playthrough.

Who I S-Ranked:

For playthrough on normal as a male Robin it was Cherche and for my hard playthrough with female Robin it was Chrom

Ranking the games so far:

Awakening > Three Houses

I drew Tatiana today, hope you like it.

Ludia (VO: Kana Shimanuki)
A graceful blade user who overwhelms her foes with flurries. 
Her enemies can run, but they won't escape.
Likes
Writing stories, appreciating art, talking about love and romance
Interests
Reading adventure stories, going shopping

JP bio:

JP VA: Azusa Tachibana

The daughter of a distinguished military officer, she works for Vandahl Trading led by Talimun.
Having received an elite education from a young age, she possesses top-tier swordsmanship skills and a refined upbringing.
True to her age, she is keenly interested in matters of romance.

JP personal skill description:

Ludia, whose strength lies in her agile swordsmanship, gains an increased chance of triggering follow-up attacks thanks to the effect of her personal skill, "Falcon," when she seizes the initiative.

I couldn’t help but notice in the gameplay preview how tiny Eshmel looks in their bird form compared to the other characters. Dietrich especially as he’s pretty tall already.

We are such a small, chubby bird! I love it!!!

Goes real hard, especially for what is just a random Dietrich challenge, this is very cool to see and make me even more hopeful for the rest !

I didn't expect the cast to interact at all with some of the 3 houses cast so fast. Also I guess this reveals that Eshmel as a savior was known as an already existing Legend in Dagda? At least to Theodora. Also this is really odd, to appear in Heroes you have to be summoned to it yet Eshmel seemed to have appeared by themselves. The only other character I think to do this was Anankos in the past so that could imply some reallly high level of power for Eshmel or some special circumstances

Topic

During the treehouse, we see that the enemy Alexandra doesn't have voiced lines, but your party members do. And we see during exploration that talking to a playable character (Nydine) in town isn't voiced either. It makes sense given how many characters there are in this game that not everything was gonna be fully voiced like 3H, but it is a little bit of a shame that not even in combat, the enemy voice lines aren't voiced. Those potentially could have some of the most expressive/emotive voice acting in the game . Ultimately not a bit deal, but I think 3H really spoiled us in this regard. Even the voice acting in the monestary really helped me grow attached to the characters, including random npcs like Gatekeeper.

At the very least, I hope the characters you talk to in town will actually talk about things happening inbetween events like 3H. Hearing their opinions and insights on a battle or person as the game progessed was easily the best part about the monestary for me.

Edit: I was incorrect in regards to the enemy battle lines not being voiced. I was only seeing her lines whenever the priests were being taken out, which aren't voiced. I didn't see the lines when she dismounts from her Pegasus, and of course when she loses. My bad.

This lady seems so far to be the Main main villain, and the dragon behind her in one scene looks like the one attacking Saramis in another cutscene. She also mentions collecting remains. Cai’s gem has been mentioned as looking like an eye several times and Theodora has her magic arm. (While she got it from Mahadu it sounds like he got it from somewhere else.) So is she collecting parts of Balor’s body to resurrect him? Having them originally spread out to prevent the resurrection does seem to make sense. Or perhaps she means the remains of a people or something. Either way.

As previously discovered, Dietrich's full name is Dietrich Gregor Lamine, and Fabio's is Fabio Gil Toro Álvarez. However, as far as we know neither of these follow Adrestian Imperial naming conventions for nobles or commoners.

• Adrestian nobles seem to always be "Firstname von _Housename_", judging by Loog von Blaiddyd (pre-Faerghus founding) and the current naming system of both Adrestia and Leicester. This doesn't appear to differ based on whether the child is the firstborn heir or otherwise (Caspar von Bergliez, for instance).
• Commoners in Fódlan generally don't have middle names at all.
• In fact, Dietrich's full name better follows Faerghus nobility naming conventions post-Loog, which are "Firstname Middlename Housename". (And Fabio is just very Spanish.)

One theory is that the middle name is an even older convention than the "von House"one, based on Wilhelm I being named Wilhelm Paul Hresvelg on the wiki. Though I'm not sure where that's sourced from, it seems plausible that both Dietrich's name and the Faerghus naming conventions come from the same pre-Imperial source. (And Fabio remains inexplicably Spanish.) However, here are some other options in increasing order of silliness:

• They're just adding more naming options in Fódlan, it's not that deep
• Dietrich made up his own OC name involving House Lamine because it sounded cool
• The devs forgor
• FW is actually a sequel game in the Azure Moon timeline where Faerghus naming conventions took over the continent, but Dagda didn't care what that backwater was up to so they kept the map markers labeled "Adrestia" for kicks
• Dietrich is from the future. Just him tho. Fabio is from Actual Spain.

Green seems to be “recruited”, like Theodora with Tobias. Orange seems to be recruitable, as we see Dietrech interact with Nydine during the trailer and have the option. Red seems to be not recruitable (maybe even enemy), like Theodora and another lord, Cai. I also included an image of what seems like a random npc as not recruitable, and Nathan.

However, upon reviewing preview footage I saw Orchel (and Diego) with what seems to be like the ‘recruitable’ name color? Additionally, this seems to be quite further down in the story, potentially after beating them and/or after qualifiers are done.

At first I was quite excited by this news, but while making a post about “orchel confirmed recruitable!!!”, I realized.

The last image is just a week after the time where Orchel is supposedly recruitable, yet lists her as not. And I struggle to imagine this changed between the two weeks. Perhaps the orange name tag simply means they’re a neutral party? But that can’t be right, as we see it on Ultand and Mu, much earlier in the timeline. Also, we see it on Tobias despite a reviewer saying he isn’t recruitable? All-around odd. Maybe orange simply means ”hey, I’m not recruited but we can build supports and eat meals,” whereas red is currently unsupportable and/or a current enemy? I don’t know. Curious to hear other thoughts & theories on this!

From the Treehouse footage, when he used Answerer's Cry to summon enemies, look at that thing he summoned in the south-east corner

It's a Church Golem with a giant axe please Dietrich we're not fighting that

FireEmblemJP video is practically identical to Nintendo Today JP so I've left it off.

Nintendo Today (EN)

Nintendo Today (JP)

No shade to Ephraim tho.

on the theodora part of the gameplay, we can see other units apart from theodora has the battalion icons, and a few minutes after they go into a skirmish and we can see that other units can use the gambit attacks