Revelations and History in Fire Emblem Warriors

Fire Emblem Warriors isn’t far from release, the intended dream collaboration between the Fire Emblem franchise and Dynasty/Samurai Warriors-style games from Omega Force, developer of the latter titles.

The use of “dream” might be a little loose here, though. Despite longtime FE fans wanting the concept to be realized for years, their dreams were crushed upon learning it would only include characters from three installments. To keep the cast consistent, Omega Force and FE-developer Intelligent Systems are only choosing characters from Shadow Dragon, Awakening, and Fates; the characters are coming  from the last three games released before Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadow of Valentia, which came too recently for any among its cast to be included. The developers wanted to focus on recent installments because they have the biggest active fanbases, and Awakening and Fates made several new fans.

Several faces from Awakening have been revealed recently, including female Robin and Cordelia, but the former character won’t be included in the main story thanks to the Robin role being fulfilled by the male iteration. It was also noted that some characters will receive changes to fit in with the game’s melee-heavy style, since the developers wanted to include nearly all characters with strong relationships. For instance: Lissa from Awakening had to be included thanks to her strong bond with characters like Chrom, Robin, and Frederick, but will use an axe despite using a staff in her original appearance.

The same logic will apply for characters from Fates, an extensive amount of which have been revealed in recent weeks. They’re following prior announcements of Female Corrin, Ryoma, and Xander. Hinoka, Takumi, and Sakura will be included from Birthright, while Camilla, Leo, and Elise will be included from Conquest. The former three are from Corrin’s birth family, while the latter are from the family that raised her. That’s “her” because despite male Corrin recently being confirmed for this game, he’ll be similar to female Robin in not being part of the main story. It would be strange to have two Corrins and Robins be involved when Awakening and Fates only had one, after all.

Like Lissa, Sakura and Elise will have modified fighting styles since both were staff-using healers in Fates. Here, Sakura will be an archer, while Elise a magic user. Both changes make more sense for the characters than an axe does for Lissa, but they presumably needed more axe users that weren’t horse or Pegasus riders. This is where someone snidely comments about other axe users in both games they could have included, but the aforementioned “relationship” logic trumped that.

One newly-revealed feature seriously excited fans, thanks to its potential: History Mode. This bonus mode will feature scenes from the FE titles the characters originate from, but retold with the 3D portraits and full-voice acting. Like a mainline FE strategy game, characters will move around on a 2D map with sprites, which are lifted directly from the original games. It will also include the sound effects and music from them, though the battles will apparently be real-time.

Like a mainline FE game, some characters can permanently die. If an ally perishes in battle, they can no longer be used on the battlefield, but they’ll still appear in cutscenes during the story. Like the newer games, it will also include a “Casual” option to turn permadeath off if you’re not a fan.

FE Warriors will also have performance options. You’ll have the opportunity to choose from a 1080p and 30fps mode, or a 720p and 60fps one. This is reminiscent of Nioh, which released on PS4 with similar options earlier this year. It could be a staple in all future Koei Tecmo action games.

Omega Force wasn’t kidding when they said this would have the largest cast for the first installment of any Warriors game thus far, as 20 have been shown, and they’re not finished. Key characters from the games involved still haven’t been revealed. Tharja, for instance is one of Awakening’s most popular characters, and Azura is one of Fates’ most important characters, and it would be a shock if both weren’t included. It’s also tough to remember that Shadow Dragon is among the games featured, since Marth is still the only confirmed character from that game. A series of events will be held for the game at Tokyo Game Show from September 21st to the 24th, where the final characters could be revealed. Tharja and Azura will likely be among them, with perhaps a few other surprises.

Fire Emblem Warriors will release on September 28th in Japan, while the western release will follow on October 20th. The latter date is noticeably close to Super Mario Odyssey, which will arrive on the 27th, but releasing before that is better than releasing after it. Warriors will also have a Special Edition in western markets that includes a 3-disc Sound Selection, character art cards, and a double-sided poster. It’s a Nintendo limited edition, though, so stock will be limited; but GameStop still has it in stock as of this writing, so hopefully it won’t be as hard to find as other LEs.