WMG / Fuga: Melodies of Steel 2

Spoilers Off for prior Little Tail Bronx games. You Have Been Warned!

Pre-release guesses

The main antagonistic force is…

• The mysterious boy (and presumed pseudo-hybrid) using the Taranis to reanimate the many Berman tanks destroyed in the last game. He may desire revenge for being used as fuel by Jeanne during the last game's Golden Ending.
  • Confirmed; the mysterious boy incites the main conflict and his motivation is revenge for being used as a Living Battery for the Taranis. However, the boy later turns out to be an Unwitting Pawn and The Man Behind the Man is actually a new character, Cayenne.

Von Stollen and Von Baum will return in some fashion.

• Either as suck-ups siding with the new villainous force or as part of a rogue Berman faction that wants to continue with the Gasco Invasion.
  • Confirmed; they do return, but are immediately apprehended by the children and spend most of the game as their prisoners of war.

Jeanne will return in some fashion.

• As much as Hax seems to be the AI for the Exo-Taranis, assuming it's a straight Fusion Dance of both tanks. As a more pessimistic guess, her role will be akin to her "White Jeanne" half from the first game, unable to help the kids or take charge to Hax's interference until the end.

Kyle will officially become The Lancer to Malt.

• It's shown via the Soul Cannon gameplay trailer that three characters are exempt from the Hax AI's twisted game of Melt That Child: Malt, Vanilla and Kyle. Malt's reason for being exempt is obvious since he's the protagonist and the Judgement system revolves around him. Vanilla's reason for being exempt can be inferred as her being another important leader of the team, but Kyle's reason for being exempt may instead be because his main role will be to play off of Malt and possibly help him with making tough decisions. If one of the trailers is any indication, he'll probably clash with Malt more frequently if Malt takes more Resolution options and less Empathy ones. The concept art from the first game's secret movie has Kyle slapping Malt, which may come as a result of Malt making a poor decision in this game.

The Exo-Taranis is not a straightforward Fusion Dance of the Taranis and the Tarascus…

• But rather it's the Tarascus after collecting enough data and nanometal to replicate the Taranis' structure and Soul Cannon… somehow. Perhaps it was what the Tarascus was always intended to be in the first place, just that the Berman engineers who originally created it lacked the resources to do so. This would allow the plot to continue being about chasing after the original Taranis and rescuing the kids trapped inside.
  • Jossed; the Exo-Taranis is a Fusion Dance caused by the Belenos causing irreparable damage to the two individual tanks.

We'll have an addendum to the last game's epilogue, or another major Call-Forward to Solatorobo: Red the Hunter.

• Perhaps Baion reflecting on the events of this game, and using it to further rationalize his "kill everyone" scheme.

President Shayne Muscat will die at the start of the game.

• During the Soul Cannon gameplay trailer, Vanilla prays "Mother… Father…" in the hopes that they'll be able to save their crew member. Her mother already died in an accident six months ago, and she talks about her father in the same breath. You do the math.
  • Confirmed. However, Vanilla later learns that her real father was Dead All Along, and the President Muscat that died at the start was an illusion.

Malt's grandparents will die early on as a result of the Taranis' violence.

• It's stated in the teaser trailer that the kids will indeed endure losses and begin seeking revenge. Malt himself is shown to be the most adamant regarding this, hence why he begins wishing death to his enemies.

Vanilla was adopted by the President, or is at least Cannelle's half-sister.

• Her fur color, hair color, face shape and overall appearance doesn't match up with that of Shayne or Cannelle, which is striking given how all the other kids' parents have a very Strong Family Resemblance to them.

The plot will be a race between the kids and the mysterious boy to find and use Belenos.

• This chapter from the Famitsu manga spoiled what Belenos is months ahead of the game's release. But to elaborate, Belenos is an incomplete Taranis-like weapon with the added ability to revive people and objects lost in war. Given the amount of hybrids who were created and died during its development, the mysterious boy (who seems to be named "Gilles", after Gilles de Rais) may want to find Belenos and use it to revive either these other hybrids or something else entirely. Conversely, Shvein Hax's ulterior motive is probably to use Belenos to revive himself in a new body, hence the reason he has a seeming Enemy Mine situation with the kids.
  • Mostly Jossed; the mysterious boy is named Jihl, he obtains the Belenos in Chapter 3 out of 12, and Hax has no ulterior motives.

Hax will steal the mysterious boy's position as Final Boss.

• In accordance with the WMG above, he'll create a new body for himself and take control of Belenos.
  • Jossed; the AI Hax remains on the children's side throughout the game.

The reason all the Berman tanks now have weird organic material covering them.

• It's easy to assume at first glance that the fungi just naturally grew over some of the tanks in the months after the Taranis blew them up (and considering how fungi only feed on dead and decaying matter, it may even be symbolic), but a Hornisse model now having fleshy appendages like sharp canines and muscle fibers indicates something else at play. The matter covering the tanks may be from a strange controlling parasite of sorts, possibly created from something like surviving remnants of the Vanargand's innards.

Another one of the Juno will appear.

• Per a scene in the trailer where a strange shape (an upward-shooting light with a pair of "arms") appears in the sky. That said, remember that summoning Tartaros in Solatorobo: Red the Hunter required both Lares and Lemures to strike at a single point in space at full power, allowing Tartaros to enter Earth's dimension. To make a long story short, the Vanargand is the only Titano-Machina created by its respective Juno per supplementary material and Jeanne's reports from the first Fuga, so presumably only it would be needed to summon said Juno. The issue is thus how someone could possibly find enough energy to summon it at all, given how the Vanargand was cut to pieces in the last game, and given how its core remains within the Tarascus. Perhaps this Juno is instead the one related to the other "Queen" German Juno?

The odd symbol represents Belenos or another Juno-like machine, not one of the actual Juno.

• In case the above WMG turns out to be false— and it would be retreading plot ideas from the second half of Solatorobo regardless, especially given how the Juno are associated with being a stick figure with two pairs of arms, as opposed to a line with a single pair of arms. With any luck, the word Juno may not even be used in this game's story outside of in-game reports, just like last time.

The mysterious boy will gain a relationship of sorts with one of the captive kids.

• A split-second shot of the first game's secret movie had Hanna… grooming him or something, along with there being a shot of the two facing one another in a manner that doesn't look confrontational. Assuming it isn't some sort of mind-control or something, it'd be nice to see a "human" character interact with the Caninu/Felineko cast on a more personal level— compared to how antagonistic Baion, Nero and Blanck were, how Yurlungur mostly acted stoic and professional, or how Red's other hybrid siblings (like Rose and Carmine) were originally Caninu and Felineko anyways. Hanna specifically is an All-Loving Heroine and could possibly be the first to treat him as a person as opposed to a tool, so she may even help redeem him to some degree, with the two becoming a platonic Beast and Beauty pair of sorts. She may even attempt to convince Malt to forgive him— which could also be a Last-Second Ending Choice for the Judgement mechanic.
  • Confirmed; Hanna's consciousness becomes the Belenos' AI after her body is disintegrated, and she helps to redeem Jihl.

The kids will either travel to the Berman Empire or assist them.

• One of the locations seen in the overview trailer appears to be set in a military base, factory or power plant of some sort (there also seem to be pools of green ooze nearby). It's possible that the kids will soon be forced to assist the Berman in cleaning up their rogue tanks. If not in this location, then somewhere else.

The "factory" level comes from the "Old World".

• That said, its design isn't like anything from Gasco or the Berman Army seen so far, so it may actually be some ancient ruins or something, especially given the odd-looking robots◊ present with a unique globe-like emblem on their fronts. (Please note that this isn't a WMG that the children will travel to the planet's surface outright, especially since Yurlungur and possibly the Futzu Tower would be under Bandai Namco's partial ownership of the series.)

A major theme for this game will be about experiencing and accepting loss.

• Per what this manga chapter spoiled, Belenos was intended to be a weapon capable of reviving objects and people that were lost in war, but was never completed due to complications surrounding the intended pseudo-hybrid that was meant to pilot it. It's possible that Belenos' resurrection powers will be completely flawed and mangled, assuming they even work at all, hammering in how death isn't something that can be undone.

Despite how the new "Count Nouvellune" character has a human appearance, he is not a hybrid.

• A townsperson from the first game suggests that Lunet is a time traveller, given how The Adventures of Sucre focuses on inventions (and, to veteran fans, how Professor Burri greatly resembles Fool). In this vein, it's possible to suggest that this "Count Nouvellune" may be a hybrid created by Baion and Merveille who went back in time to… distribute someone else's comics, but it's also possible that he could simply be a regular human that somehow cheated the Reset.

Hanna will die.

• All the other returning kids seem to have some footage in gameplay except Hanna, indicating that she may be either the last to join or… well, the above. At best, she may sacrifice herself and change the tone of the story and all the characters' demeanors. At worst, she might be Stuffed in the Fridge just like that. In accordance with the above WMGs regarding Malt's grandparents and Belenos' role in the story, Malt may try to use Belenos' healing capabilities to bring them all back.
  • Confirmed, although in the best ending, it's Jihl that brings her back instead of Malt.

The Wolf Tribe of Solatorobo lore will be relevant to this game.

• Wolves were said to be more adept with "magic" (nanometal sensing and manipulation) than even modern Felineko, and nanometal is the technology that pretty much every strange thing in this universe is built around— the Taranis included, of course. And the tall mecha◊ seen in this game's "factory" level is also very similar in appearance to the Robos first used by the Wolves per artwork◊ depicting Solatorobo lore, though with a different symbol adorned on the front (a globe in Fuga 2 and a magatama-like shape in the Solatorobo art books).

Malt himself has some kind of connection to the Wolves mentioned in Solatorobo.

• Malt in the first game has a small awareness of Jeanne reseting to just before the Soul Cannon tutorial. In the Famitsu manga (which Hiroshi Matsuyama himself contributes story info to), the Maestro concludes that Malt's presence is why the plot starts going Off the Rails with Wappa's arrival, Malt has a faint recollection of being sacrificed to the Soul Cannon, and during the Cor Tarascus' defeat, Malt undergoes a sudden transformation that makes him appear more wolf-like. It's possible that Malt may unconsciously have Wolf-like powers of some kind, hence why he can sense or even impact the weird actions undertaken by nanotechnology or Juno computations.

Mau will be one of the locations travelled to in this game, with a key role in the story just like in the last game.

• A remix of "Mau - The Bower" from Solatorobo: Red the Hunter can be heard as BGM for the trailer demonstrating Meetups. If this WMG is false, then this track may simply be bootstrapped to Sheena like it was in one Comedies of Steel short.

This game's unlockable reports will be…

• A diary by Hanna detailing her time trapped on the Taranis with the mysterious boy.
• A bunch of reports written by individual Gasco civilians and soldiers, discussing their personal side of the story.
• A journal written by the mysterious boy detailing other key "Juno" lore that Jeanne missed.
• Entries discussing the history of the setting between the Reset and Gasco Invasion, akin to the Library entries in Solatorobo: Red the Hunter.

Wappa's new hippie-inspired look and mindset came from her traveling to this setting's equivalent of America.

• Given how she's been stated to have started traveling since the Vanargand's defeat, it makes sense, right?

Vanilla, like Socks, is one of Merveille's distant ancestors.

• Given that the two of them have a regal flair of sorts. That isn't to say she'll get together with Socks specifically; just that their bloodlines might cross over at some point. (Granted, Solatorobo happens roughly forty generations after Fuga, so you could just as easily make the argument that half of Shepherd may as well have been descended from Socks by that point.)

Post-release and Sequel guesses

For Fuga 3, instead of Malt being the protagonist, the player will get to make semi-customizable character Fire Emblem style.

• This customizable avatar can be a child who's either Caninu or Felinko and may either be given an androgynous appearance to allow for Gender-Inclusive Writing or the player may be given the option to make them look more masculine or feminine to their liking. The game will start with the avatar finding a Super Prototype of the Taranis and being forced to board it by whatever causes the conflict in the third game's story. Gradually, the avatar will chance upon the Taranis Crew, with the kids inviting themselves aboard the "Proto-Taranis" so they can mentor the avatar on how to use it to its full potential and assist them in what plight they have to deal with.
  • In terms of character motivation, the avatar may be someone who was wronged in some way by Malt or Malt's brother and is pursuing them with the intent to thwarting their plans. The kids may fear the avatar may be driven to vengeance like some of them were in previous games which may put a rift between the avatar and their companions initially, but with Character Development the avatar may cool off on that idea or communicate that they're actually interested in seeking justice, not vengeance.

"Hero Mode" is actually the children channeling legendary heroes.

• The unlockable Secret Movie reveals that Boron is explicitly a reincarnation of an ancient hero, and Petit Mona is the "birthplace of heroes". Therefore, rather than Hero Mode being merely an innate power of the children, it's them literally manifesting Heroes.

Sheena's sister Nili and Britz's sister Frita will be playable in Fuga 3.

• If all of the children from the previous two games return, this will mean a total of 15 playable characters, and therefore an equal number of Machine Gun, Grenade Launcher, and Cannon users without sacrificing anyone.

Count Nouvellune will be Maestro's counterpart in Fuga 3.

• In addition to the Count's increased prominence in the sequel compared to the original game, one of the shots in the unlockable Secret Movie is of the actual moon, which he's heavily associated with. Given Nouvellune's similarities to Maestro, such as their use of masks and more human-like bodies, they may have similar origins and are either working together or are in direct opposition.

Malt will be an Anti-Villain for a good amount of Fuga 3.

• If the Secret Movie in Fuga 2 is anything to go by, it seems like Malt will be driven by a desire to prevent a Bad Future from happening and is working with his long-lost brother toward that exact goal. However, Malt's actions toward preventing the bad future involve him committing crimes that run of risk of him getting branded a traitor and a villain to the people of Gasco. Malt's unable to explain the situation to his friends or sister because he doesn't want them to suffer the same vilification by getting themselves involved. It may only be after the rest of the Taranis Crew figures out on their own what Malt's trying to do that they eventually find a way to get Malt to steer away from the path he chose and they help him find a better way to subvert the Bad Future.

A Psycho Rangers team will be the next main villain of Fuga 3.

• Given how this trilogy's Central Theme is about the unhealthy pursuit of vengeance and that the teaser shows the Berman Army marching, enraged relatives of Berman soldiers that our protagonists killed will seek out our protagonists for payback when hearing about the armistice and peace treaty. Each person will be a Shadow Archetype of the original dozen. Expect Never My Fault and What Measure Is a Mook? to be used a lot.
  • Malt - The leader of the bunch that fosters vengeance among the group.
  • Hanna - A tiger mother that the others live in fear of.
  • Socks - Wants to invent the best killing machines with his intellect.
  • Boron - A Fat Bastard or a Lean and Mean person that delights in maximizing pain and suffering.
  • Mei - An Enfant Terrible that willingly kills people.
  • Kyle - A citizen of the Berman capitol that looks down on the others.
  • Chick - An enabler of pranks that is caused by her sibling, in where their relationship is lukewarm at best.
  • Hack - An person who loves doing Deadly Pranks no matter how much it hurts while at the same time a Dirty Coward.
  • Sheena - A felineko spellcaster who is reduced to a tool of war.
  • Jin - A factory worker that gave into vengeance and is building war machines.
  • Wappa - A war hawk and bully without any maturity that is given the role of leader.
  • Britz - A youth corps member that isn't disillusioned with the Berman Empire's methods. Either that or the Kaiser himself since Hax and Flam filled that role in the first game.
  • Vanilla - A stuck-up member of Berman royalty.

Malt's brother will be revealed to be a Childish Older Sibling.

• Giving some justification to Malt frequently spouting how he's the oldest, Malt's brother may have someone who was more laidback and comparatively less emotionally mature or responsible compared to Malt, to a point where by the time Malt was born and proven the more responsible sibling in comparison, Malt's brother may have found himself more aware of his own shortcomings and insecure about himself as a result. Malt's brother may have encouraged Malt to make the claim that the latter is actually the oldest because Malt's brother felt he deserved the respect that went with that title.

The Berman Kaiser will be the central villain of the third game.

• This game's conversation establish the Berman Leben Kaiser as the person who formed the country as the conquering jingoistic empire that we know. He was also likely aware of Hax's goal and ambition and sanctioned it, and for all we know he's alive, well and in power following Fuga 2. Such a character would not take the defeat of his country and the signing of a peace treaty on the terms of the country whose land was sundered yet it still repelles his invasion lying down, and in the third game he will find yet more pieces of the Lost Technology to personally enact his revenge.

Hanna will become the third game's Mission Control.

• Following the vanishing of Jeanne and the AI Hax there are no other known A.I.s left who could operate playable tanks. Hanna, however, after spending some time as a Virtual Ghost inside the Belenos' systems and later restored from it will gain some minor Technopath abilities that will allow her to interface with the machinery, fulfilling the support functions, while the remaining twelve kids will still be controllable playable characters.
  • On that note, if you lose too many kids or triggered a Soul Cannon countdown, Hanna can jump in and make herself playable again with busted skills and stats. Of course, there is means that in exchange any in-game support functions are (temporarily) disabled as there is no operator left for the tank itself.

The third game will see us developing support abilities for Hanna similar to Malt's

• Following up on the above WMG, instead of Malt gaining new leader abilities it will be Hanna developing her new powers as Mission Control, either in addition to Malt or in his stead.

The third game will prominently feature Lares

• Elh mentioned that the Paladins had been suppressing Lares for centuries, and the third game will show how Lares would've activated for the first time and remained a persistent threat up until Solatorobo.
  • CyberConnect2's current stance regarding Solatorobo material may prevent that from happening— while it did make a cameo late in the first game, it wasn't referred to by name in that scene. In-game reports and one-off dialogue trees are different in that regard, but it doesn't seem like the devs can explicitly have Lares be relevant to the plot. No telling on what happened to Malamute and its limestone caves following the Vanargand's first attack, however.

Maestro will turn out to be the Greater-Scope Villain for the whole series

• Maestro will turn out to be the avatar of the hyper information convergence that Crusade attempted to build, in the similar way to how Yurlungur was the emissary and mouthpiece of Juno in front of humanity, and the final entry in the second game's files is written by him. With his physical "body" housed on the Moon, he is behind the events of all three games, including Jeanne's awakening and the war she caused (and providing her with computational abilities she used to run her predictions for the first game), leaking the locations of Crusade temples to Cayenne so he could enact his revenge scheme, as well as whatever is going on in the third one. Having grown disillusioned with humanity and the mission bestowed upon him by Crusade, he now acts out of self-interest and desire for control. In the past, he deliberately failed in his mission to counterbalance Juno influence so that humanity could wipe itself out, and in the present he wants to erase all traces of the Juno legacy - including both the Titano-Machina and Caninu and Felineko races - so he could have the world all to himself and restore it "right". He's been watching over Malt and grooming him into the enforcer of his will like he already did with his brother, probably because of him being the best candidate for it according to his calculations.
  • It's also possible that he'll be responsible for the Berman Empire's return to war against Gasco despite the peace treaty between both nations (and how their so-called "god" was taken down by a bunch of country bumpkins). That said, Jeanne herself is already the avatar of Crusade's "pseudo-Juno" Hyper Information Convergence, meaning that Maestro has to be something else.

The Taranis will receive a new upgraded form right from the start of the third game.

• The Exo-Taranis allowed for a best-of-both-worlds scenario: the Soul Cannon as usual encourages the player to get better at the game and take things seriously (although its specific method of implementation has been mixed among players), and the Managarm's inclusion has been well-received as a way for the player to get through in a pinch without the consequences attached to it being too damning or permanent. However, the Golden Ending of the second game has the Tarascus' core converted into energy for the Soul Cannon, taking the Managarm with it, and reverting the Exo-Taranis back into the original Taranis with just the Soul Cannon grafted to it. It's possible that the Taranis will receive yet another upgrade early on in the third game with a new giant gun attached to it, as a replacement for the Managarm gameplay-wise. Story-wise, the previous power sources of the Taranis have also been extinguished— the original "life force" of the tank that kept Jeanne "functioning as an AI" was used to defeat the original Hax in the first game, and the core of the Vanargand was used up to defeat Cayenne in this one— and there are no more hybrids like Jihl that could be used to command the tank through their extrasensory abilities, meaning that how the Taranis will receive said upgrade is still unknown.

Fuga 3 will introduce a second, but more defensive version of Hero Mode.

• Conditions for triggering it will be somewhat different and involve a third gauge placed bellow the HP and SP bars. It could be called something like a "Valor Gauge" and allow the player to trigger at any point a "Valor Mode" where the Taranis Kids display their battle-hardened confidence being bolstered to the highest degree to a point where they become temporarily immune to status effects and all their stats are temporarily bolstered considerably. To go along with the hypothetical Valor Mode's theme of being tied to the confidence of the kids, we may get treated to one of the kids spouting a Pre-Asskicking One-Liner tied to their respective play style and warning their opponent just how bad an idea it is to cross them. To suggest a few;
  Malt: You made a mistake, and it's gonna really hurt!
  Mei: Keep up with us, if you can!
  Hanna: You can't outlast us, give up!
  Vanilla: I need only hit the right spot and you're toast!
  Boron: Scared? If it helps, I'd be too if I were you.
  Kyle: We're gonna so plow right through you!
  Socks: I calculated the odds and they aren't good, for you.
  Hack: For every trick up your sleeve, we've got ten!
  Chick: It's not your lucky day, is it?
  Sheena: I have just the right spell for this!
  Jin: You're gonna wish you gave your ride more of a tune-up.
  Wappa: Hey, no shame in surrendering!
  Britz: I'm not sure your heart can handle the shock of losing.

Jihl will be brought back in some form during Fuga 3.

• The Secret Movie implies that he and Hanna are Sharing a Body post-resurrection. If Jihl is still alive within Hanna, it's possible that he might act as an "inner voice" for her, as a sort of reversal of what the two's relationship was like in this game. If he returns in full and is forced to pilot something like the Belenos again, he might be helped out by the other kids this time as opposed to doing everything on his own, and succeed this time around as a result.

The Berman Empire will be the setting of Fuga 3.

• The first game involved traveling across the single continent of Gasco, with locations having been affected by the Berman Army's influence. The second game involved traveling across the shattered Gasco, with locations being more peaceful and gaining some elements of their far-future Solatorobo counterparts, along with there being further exploration into Crusade's technology as well as the facilities they left behind. It's likely that to differentiate the third game's settings from the rest, Fuga 3 will involve the kids coming to the Berman Empire to deal with the next threat directly, especially given the previous implications that Emperor Leber Kaiser will have a bigger role to play.

The Berman Empire is dealing with a civil war that's making its way to Gasco.

• Between the humiliating military defeat of the Gasco Invasion, both Gasco and Berman having stronger and stronger diplomatic ties over the course of the following year, and the beloved "Lost God" being blasted to bits twice and nearly being used to destroy the Berman Empire itself, it's definitely likely that patriotism in Berman has waned over the course of the first two games. That said, there are many implications that the Berman leader, Emperor Leber Kaiser, is responsible for perpetuating many of Berman's fascistic traits, and it's likely that the events of the past year have therefore pissed him the hell off, meaning that it's liable that he'll be wishing to retaliate against Gasco in a wrathful attempt to restore his nation's pride. However, AI Hax has claimed that there's little chance of the two nations' peace being broken, so there may be a faction of Bermans rebelling against the Emperor for his attempt to restart the war— the faction that Malt and friends are likely going to be siding with at some point, at the risk of directly breaking the peace between the two nations once again.

The children will be revealed as Caninu/Felineko clones of the XII Owls.

• Given that the series views science fiction concepts through mythological and religious terminology and the involvement of Futzu Tower, where the owls lived, the idea of “reincarnation of legendary heroes” will actually be the fact that the children are actually a secret experiment to clone the XII owls. There are twelve owls, and the playable children consist of thirteen kids including one pair of twins. (Hack and Chick, who are clones of the same person) The children possess Genetic Memory so that the mastermind behind the operation could find out what happened to humanity or how the Juno work, and they have been biding their time until the clones awaken their memories.

Hanna may actually be a Hybrid like Red.

• Consider this; We've seen Hanna's mother a few times and Hanna herself mentioned her more than a few times, but we never heard anything about her father. This could mean that Hanna's father is a Hybrid as well who left or died before Hanna was born. If so, Fuga 3 may be bring us to a point where Hanna unlocks her Trance form (possibly with help from Jihl) with that transformation affecting gameplay to some extent.
  • Not so sure about that. Considering that Jihl doesn't have a Trance form, I think it can be inferred that Trance was developed by Baion and Merveille themselves as a way for their pseudo-hybrids to reach a degree of power comparable to that of a full hybrid like Baion himself.

The third game will have a theme based around the idea of "Kemono".

• The overall tagline for the series in Japan is "War x Vengeance x Kemono". The first game was a straightforward war story. The second game was about Malt and the antagonists' different desires for vengeance. Hence, the third game may focus on, say, the connections and relationships between the Caninu and Felineko, especially given the Fantastic Racism that still exists within the Berman Empire. The job of Malt and the gang is to help the different peoples of Berman join up and overcome the Kaiser and other oppressive forces.

Jihl will not be fully revived, but Hanna will be given a new gameplay role.

• There's an argument to be made that he's already fulfilled his purpose in this game, and given that it took the full completion of the Belenos and his Heroic Sacrifice combined to allow Hanna to be brought back to life, it can be said that bringing him back would nullify the impact of said sacrifice. It's possible that he'll instead act as a subconsciousness of sorts to Hanna, with her able to communicate with him at certain points, and gaining access to more of his abilities as a hybrid as the game goes on. In contrast to how Malt's Leadership Skills are meant to impact the moment-to-moment flow of battles, Hanna's new abilities may instead cause the Taranis itself to change or transform, such as having it gain new armaments or movement options to allow for there to be different types of battles themselves. Considering Hanna's reputation among the Fuga community for being rather boring and flat compared to all the other kids, giving her this may help to highlight what her strengths and her weaknesses are, giving her a character arc to go through just like Malt did in this game. In essence, Malt would be the "captain" of the Taranis who makes strategic decisions for the crew in battle, whereas Hanna would be the "quartermaster" responsible for the functioning and organization of the Taranis.

The finale to Fuga 3 will be set on the moon.

• Per the many implications throughout both games that the moon would be a part of the story of Fuga — Count Nouvellune, Jeanne's brief mention of it in her archives, the man who wrote the last Crusade Archive being in "dark, frozen wasteland", the brief "Earthrise" shot from the moon in this game's Secret Movie — why not? As of now, the only unknown is how the tanks are going to get there.

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