After Nintendo uploaded a new video about Fire Emblem If’s My Castle feature yesterday, our friend shadowofchaos725 went to work and provided us with a subtitled version of the video.
Check it out below and read on for a breakdown of all the new details.
My Castle video, new details breakdown:
- It is a castle town populated by the game’s playable characters and it can be developed to the player’s liking;
- It is present in both versions of the game and can be accessed between story chapters;
- The player can freely roam around the map within My Castle, just like in a traditional RPG (and similarly to Fire Emblem: Gaiden);
- While walking around the castle town, players can interact with the playable characters or use the various town facilities, such as armouries and vendors or even a statue of the player;
- One of the facilities is a Forge, so forging of weapons seems to be back. One difference is that resources, like ore, are required to forge weapons;
- Although movement uses the game’s standard top-down view, there is a command to switch the camera to a third-person perspective, to let you admire your castle’s surroundings;
- The castle town is mostly empty at the beginning, with the exception of one notable building, My Room;
- This building, built on a treetop, functions like the Barracks in Awakening, but this time it’s the player’s personal space;
- There are various spots around the castle where players can gather resources. The examples shown include a Vegetable Plot (Vegetables), Amethyst Spring (Amethysts), Field (Rice), Crystal Crag (Crystals) and Dairy Farm (Milk);
- These resources seem to be exclusive to each My Castle and might be exclusive to each version too;
- Players can select the types of buildings they want to add to the castle and can manually place them on the map. Buildings can be rotated and placed on roads, but not over trees;
- Once the placement of the building has been confirmed, players must expend “Dragon Pulse Points” to create said building;
- 1 point is required to construct a Level 1 Hoshidan Armoury;
- The buildings are managed by playable characters. In the example shown, Rinka is taking care of the Hoshidan Armoury (much like Kazahana in the Nintendo Direct);
- The weapons available at the start include those made out of Bronze, Iron, Steel and some ranged variants. Weapons are now more costly than usual, likely because the weapon durability is gone;
- Some weapons have a limited stock, while some are unlimited (mostly the basic ones). Some weapons are occasionally on sale too, perhaps depending on who’s in charge. For example, in the video, Maces are on sale and Rinka is a Mace-wielder, so it’s not that massive of a stretch;
- Dragon Pulse Points can be spent to improve an existing building’s Level. 1 point to elevate the Hoshidan Armoury to Level 2;
- The Level 2 Hoshidan Armoury adds Silver weaponry, new ranged options and other special weaponry (like the Axeslayer Katana), while increasing the stock of limited weapons or making them unlimited;
- An Hoshidan Vendor costs 1 Dragon Pulse Point to build. As one would expect, they carry staves and healing items, the only items that still have durability.
- As with weapons, the basic staves and healing items have unlimited stock, while the better ones have limited stock;
- In the Accessory Shop, players can outfit their characters with accessories bought using resources. These are in turn reflected in the character’s battle model;
- Accessories are divided into four categories: Hat, Face, Glove and Body. Hats appear to increase the damage dealt by 1 while battling an opponent at their My Castle, while face accessories reduce damage received by 1;
- In the Canteen, players can fork over ingredients (resources) to make food for their party. For example, Felicia will use your Meat to make a “Killer Steak” that boosts your party’s Strength by 1 for one chapter;
- The party members don’t seem impressed with the Killer Steak, but it seems to work because out of 14 characters, half of them receive the stat boost. However, the “Killer” property reduces all of the characters’ stats by 1, while increasing their Strength and Magic by 2;
- The Arena is back and, this time around, players can select from a list of resources to gamble before entering. The example shown has a Samurai for the 1st round and if successful, the player will receive 1 extra Amethyst on top of the 1 Amethyst used to pay for the round;
- At the Lottery Shop, you can try your luck to receive rare items, such as a Silver Naginata. At the moment, it’s unclear how you pay for the lottery;
- One of the scenes shows the Avatar and Cyrus engaging in an “Ore Exchange” while at the Forge. Here, they are trading ores of different kinds, including Coral, Lapis Lazuli, Amethyst, Jade, Amber and Pearl;
- The Hubba Tester from Awakening is back, letting you test the “compatibility” of your characters;
- When the characters aren’t managing shops or other facilities, they will be standing around somewhere in town and players can speak to them if they want, although unless there’s an exclamation mark over their head, nothing special really happens, besides idle conversation;
- Conversing with characters seems to work very similarly to the Barracks in Awakening, with characters often receiving single-chapter stat boosts or picking up rare items. 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;
- Inside the Hot Spring, players can relax with their comrades… or stare at them from different angles… So far, it seems you can only share the pool with same-gender characters because later on there is a scene where Kazahana embarrassingly chases out a male Avatar, suggesting the idea of “shared pools” doesn’t exist. There also appears to be some form of special “hot spring” conversations;
- Inside the Lilith’s Shrine, players can tend to the sacred Azure Dragon known as Lilith. By feeding Lilith food (resources), it will gain experience and Level Up like a regular unit. However, its stats appear to reflect the food it’s given. For example, after eating some Fish, its Speed increases by 1;
- Within My Room, players can customise the Avatar’s hairstyle or invite playable characters to their room. “Inviting” is said to improve “relationships” between characters, so presumably it is related to the support system. 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, who knows. It also seems that any character (male or female) can be rubbed in the face during these “invitations”;
- StreetPass visitors will materialize in a designated plaza within My Castle. Speaking to these visitors opens up a menu similar to the one in Awakening, where you can check the visitor’s profile card, team stats, battle them in your castle, or their castle, visit them or dismiss them;
- “visiting” refers to visiting the other player’s castle, where you can freely roam around like inside your own castle. So you can speak to the other player’s characters and use their facilities;
- Hoshido players and Nohr players can StreetPass each other. This means that, while some characters and items may be exclusive to Hoshido, for example, a Nohr player can obtain them by visiting a Hoshido version castle.
- The example shown in the video has a Hoshido player visiting a Nohr player, where some fans have been quick to notice a new character, Luna, who greatly resembles Awakening’s Severa;
- Afterwards, the player visits a Nohrian Armoury and the video 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;
- Some of the resources appear to be exclusive to Hoshido or Nohr and you can gather those at the other player’s castle too;
- This time, StreetPass battles take place inside My Castle, either yours or the visitor’s. Similar to 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 fair for both parties, players can choose to handicap the other team or not, or apply a restriction on stats;
- The conditions for winning 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 after the battle is over. Lilith, the little dragon, assists you as a NPC and, at least in the footage, it heals the Avatar’s HP;
- Not mentioned in the dedicated trailer, is the fact players can adjust various settings for their StreetPass team. This includes the position of your units in My Castle, whether they’re paired up or not, simple AI options (like staying still, guarding or charging forward) or even which group they’re to (from a max selection of 3);
- Characters can gain experience from StreetPass battles, in the Hoshido campaign, but if you’re playing the Nohr campaign, no experience is awarded, so you can’t rely on StreetPass as a free, grinding zone;
- The MVP support system is back, and there is an interesting gauge that seems to be for Dragon Pulse Points;
- After emerging victorious from a battle, players can register any character from the opposing team into their Avatar Logbook, not just the other player’s Avatar. This means you can “recruit” characters outside of your campaign (but they will likely function like “guest” units and have limited conversations and interaction options);
- There seems to exist a shop where you can purchase “Einherjar” cards, like the ones found in Awakening. However, this time around, the Einherjars include playable characters (such as the Avatar, Felicia and Cyrus) and generic units (with the same names as the 12 Deadlords…);
- Another thing that stands out is footage of Cyrus taking down the “Mouth of Truth” monster seen in the initial trailer. Curiously, the Golem appears as a facility in My Castle (maybe as a way to gain experience in the Hoshido route?);
- By scanning in the Amiibos of Marth, Ike, Robin or Lucina (using a New 3DS or 3DS NFC Adapter), that character will materialise in your castle. Details are scarce beyond that, but at the very least it is possible to battle the four heroes and recruit them for your team (as guest characters, presumably).
And those are all the details we know of for now!
Once again, very special thanks to Serenes Forest for all this amazing information!