Fire Emblem Direct — Echoes of Warriors and Heroes

The existence of a Fire Emblem Direct for the worldwide audience shows the enormous strides the franchise has made in terms of popularity in only four years.

For instance: Do you remember the time where plenty of skeptics just knew it was dead outside Japan? Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon for DS, a remake of the first FE game, wasn’t a big seller in western territories and had poor reception, with fans finding its gameplay approach archaic compared to newer games. It was bad enough that Nintendo decided to skip localizing its verbosely-named successor and remake of the third installment: Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem — Heroes of Light and Shadow — though it received a solid fan translation. But Awakening came along and put the franchise back on the map worldwide, and last year’s release of Fates sold even better. It’s now one of Nintendo’s tentpole franchises, and they’re treating it as such.

Mentions of the previous FE remakes were necessary, as the first game announced was Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia for 3DS. It’s a remake of the 1992 Famicom title Fire Emblem Gaiden, the previously-skipped second installment in the series, which has a modified gameplay approach compared to other games in the franchise. The game can be played from the perspectives of two characters named Alm and Celica, both of whom are seen as children at the beginning of the preview, who make a promise to not engage in conflict with each other. However, both of their older iterations end up involved in a fierce war in Valentia.

While this game still includes the series’ traditional turn-based battles and overhead grids, it contains a more expansive world map and fully explorable dungeons, with battles that are triggered by visible enemy encounters. It will also differ from other games in the franchise by having fully-voiced cutscenes, presumably in English for us despite the Direct version being entirely in Japanese.

The character designs have also been redone, since the circa-1992 designs don’t fit in with modern standards despite being nice. Instead of them being redrawn by current mainline series artist Yusuke Kozaki, Intelligent Systems enlisted the efforts of Hidari, whose work was previously seen in the Atelier Dusk trilogy and Toukiden games. It will also have anime cutscenes from Studio Khara, previously responsible for the Rebuild of Evangelion movies, among other anime works.

Shadows of Valentia will release in Japan on April 20th, while a western release will quickly follow on May 19th. This will mark the fastest localization turnover time in the franchise’s history, further showing how Nintendo is aware of its worldwide success.

There were plenty who saw that announcement and said “What about Switch?” In response, Nintendo had a little something for them: A new Fire Emblem game is in development for Nintendo’s upcoming platform, tentatively due for release in 2018. When it releases, it will mark the first FE game that can be played on a home console since Radiant Dawn on Wii in 2007 — the first in eleven years. Unfortunately, no further details were provided.

Fire Emblem Warriors was announced during last week’s Switch presentation with a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it glimpse at the actual game. The first gameplay was saved for this Direct, which showed Chrom in action fighting a flurry of enemies. It still wasn’t much, and Chrom is still the only character confirmed thus far, but expect to see a lot of characters from Awakening and Fates in the final roster. But the game looks more like a traditional Warriors title compared to Koei Tecmo/Omega Force’s other Warriors adaptations, like Hyrule Warriors and the Dragon Quest Heroes games. In addition to Switch, the game will also release for New 3DS when it arrives this fall. Given how poorly Hyrule Warriors Legends ran on the old 3DS models, it was for the better that they decided not to port it to them.

It’s been known since April that a mobile Fire Emblem game was coming, and that will arrive in the form of Fire Emblem Heroes. Here, players will assume the role of a summoner capable of using characters from a slew of other games in the franchise to assemble an army and fight in battles. Those include characters like Marth, Lyn, Tiki, Lucina, Ryoma, and so many more that I’d bore you by further listing them.

The game will be played in portrait view, with 8×6 perspective isometric battlefields. Battles themselves will be identical to the franchise’s traditional turn-based ones, complete with the weapon and magic triangle. Encounters themselves will resemble those from the older 2D games. The battle animations for the sprites are nowhere near as detailed as those for the GBA titles, but appear smooth enough for the gigantic cast of characters they’re making them for. In addition to the main battles, players can also level up their characters in the “Training Tower,” and use rewards they’ve earned to acquire new skills.

Heroes is planned for an iOS and Android release on February 2nd, though prospective players can pre-register now on both services. The game will be free-to-play, and you can bet they’ll charge a minimal amount to use many of its features. You can also go to the official website to vote for a favorite hero and heroine, whose poll winners will be featured in an in-game event sometime in the future. The game sounds similar in structure to a number of f2p games that do well in Asian territories, so prepare to be assaulted with moneymaking schemes.

This was a short-but-sweet Direct which fulfilled its purpose in solidifying how FE will be one of Nintendo’s main franchises from here on. The company will undoubtedly have more info to share about each game shown on future occasions, so keep your eyes open.

If you want to watch the Direct, feel free to do so here.