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Which gatekeeper is best?

After the huge success that was Fire Emblem Fates, it is almost a guarantee that we will be seeing the fifteenth entry to our beloved franchise in a couple of years. I thought it would be a fun idea to compile all the things that would, in my opinion, make the perfect Fire Emblem game. I'll be focusing my attention on the following areas: aesthetics, gameplay, and story. Without further ado, here is what I could think the perfect Fire Emblem game would look like! Feel free to share your thoughts on this as well. ================================================================================================= Aesthetics ARTIST & ART DIRECTION I believe that the best Fire Emblem character designs came from the Judgral Saga. The simple tunics and beautiful, flowing robes the characters wore captured the essence of medieval fantasy, almost as if they came straight from the epic, Beowulf. Unfortunately, I believe those rather archaic designs would not hold up in the current gaming market, especially considering that both Awakening and Fates had more of the stereotypical "JRPG-flavored" medieval high fantasy art direction. As a compromise, I would want Senri Kita to return as the artist for the next Fire Emblem game. Her work seen in the Tellius Saga is almost as good as Genealogy's and Thracia 776's character aesthetic and she captured the medieval fantasy essence more so than Kozaki did. Her use of bright colors and simplistic designs make the characters look more mature and (slightly) more realistic (aside from the technicolor hair). It's an art style that I would like to see again. She also did a wonderful job designing EVERY class. I find that Kozaki's class art were rather hit or miss. Some of his art for the classes were amazing, like the Outlaw, Samurai, Mercenary (Fates), Wyvern Lord (Fates), and Wolfskin to name a few. However, some of his other classes, including the Great Knight (Awakening), General (Awakening), Knight (Awakening and Fates), Cavalier (Awakening) and Sorcerer (Awakening) were, put simply, HORRID. I understand that, by himself, Kozaki is a great artist and the reasonfor the bad class designs were due to an art director with bad taste. However, if Kozaki were to be the next artist for FE15, he HAS to get a new art director. Ideally, though, I would want Senri Kita to return. Let's compare Kita's class design with Kozaki's. Let's use the mage class as an example. [spoiler=Kita VS Kozaki] KOZAKI KITA Credit goes to FE Wiki for these images. I find Kozaki's design for the mage would be something one would find in a fashion show over a battlefield. It looks nice and flashy, but it is not practical for combat. If the weather turned cold, how would the person, wearing the garb, adapt to the cold? Kita's, on the other hand, not only is more practical, but also is more in keeping with the medieval fantasy vibe. It gives the wearer ample protection against the elements, but is loose enough to allow the user to be relatively agile. It would help a mage be better suited for combat. Let's not get started on the battle thongs present in Kozaki's female Paladin design. You never want to have an exposed derriere when riding on horseback; it would hurt like hell if your cheeks rubbed against the saddle as the horse gallops. MORE UNIQUE ENEMY DESIGNS While Fates did an amazing job in creating custom 3D battle models, portraits, and overworld sprites for chapter bosses, it didn't do much for the generic enemy units. Path of Radiance, Radiant Dawn, Tactics Ogre, and Final Fantasy Tactics had unique enemy color palettes that distinguished enemies hailing from different kingdoms. While Fates did have Hoshido and Nohr, there were chapters where the player faced ruffians. Among these ruffians would be Onmyojis, Paladins, and Generals. Why would units from both Hoshido and Nohr be in a band of ruffians? Also, what would someone as dignified as a Paladin be doing in a gang of highwaymen? I understand this choice from a gameplay perspective, but I find that Berserkers, Outlaws, Fighters and Mercenaries are units better suited to be affiliated with ruffians. Also, the Ice Tribe and Wind Tribe enemy units looked no different from your average Hoshidan or Nohrian (respectively). It would have been cool if they, at least had a different color palette. Not only did Fates fail to incorporate ways to distinguish enemy factions, but it also failed to add more female generic units. Sure there were the Kinshi Knight, Falcon Knight, Strategist, Priestess, Maid, Shrine Maiden, and Troubadour but it would have been cool to see the occasional female Paladin, Sniper, General, or Berserker. Tactics Ogre (PSP) and Final Fantasy Tactics did an excellent job on this front. The player was treated to a diverse battlefield, with many different version of the same kind of unit. It made for an immersive experience. It would be my hope that FE15 have unique class designs for every enemy faction involved in the war (like a "Ruffian" Mercenary would look different than an "Imperial Empire" Mercenary). I would also want to see more female units in classes they normally don't appear in. If making a unique class design for all the classes in every army faction is too much work, then I suggest a simple recolor job. Essentially IS should consider doing something like this in their next game: [spoiler=Mock Up Image] Player Unit Color Scheme Kingdom 1 Unit Color Scheme Kingdom 2 Unit Color Scheme Kingdom 3 Unit Color Scheme Bandit/Ruffian Unit Color Scheme Credit goes to FE Wiki for the base image. It would be cool if something like this happened. It would be really cool to see more female variants to generic classes and alternate color palettes. BETTER MENU TRANSLATIONS CHARACTER PROMOTION PORTRAITS & WEAPON ICONS This is a minor nitpick, but I really loathe all the menu abbreviations. Instead of of "STR" or "MAG", I'd like to see "Strength" and "Magic". Being the OCD type, seeing the abbreviations crammed into a tiny space grinds my gears. It's my hope that IS designs a menu layout that's "localization friendly" for lack of a better term. This way, the menu can look more professional and, perhaps, give newcomers an easier time understanding the mechanics instead of remembering what the heck "AVO" is supposed to mean. I understand that they spell out what each stat does in Fates if you tap on the lower screen, but I think it would be cool if the menu looked better. Another annoyance of mine is that the playable character portraits don't match up with their promotion class, or their reclass options. I REALLY hope that IS fixes this, because Berwick Saga was the only "FE-inspired" game that actually had character portraits change once they promoted. In Fates, it would be hilarious to have, lets say Midori, come to the private quarterers as a General then magically change out of her armor once the whole "bonding scene" took place. To me, it just shows IS's laziness. Having that kind of feature could be possible if the ensemble cast were, oh I don't know, 40% smaller. It would be really awesome to have character portraits match their current class. Finally, the next nitpick is the weapon icon atrocity that appeared in Fates. I was NOT OK with having a ubiquitous icon to represent the specific weapon classes. It really made finding weapons in the convoy and stores a chore. I simply do not understand why IS couldn't have reused some of Awakening's icons. Lack of weapon icons made the game seem, unpolished. THEY BETTER NOT DO THAT AGAIN. ================================================================================================= Gameplay GAMEPLAY I don't have much to add here since Fates had, by far, the best in the series. All that I would add would be more unique map objectives. Conquest did this perfectly. It was unfortunate that both Birthright and Revelation failed to do this, because it made their paths exceedingly dull. I want to see the return of more enemy-only weapons and skills, perhaps the Rewarp staff, Berserk Staff, and Stone Spell. GAMEPLAY MODES Get rid of Phoenix mode. GET RID OF IT. It trivializes the very essence of Fire Emblem. I'll be fine if they keep Casual (for the baby gamers out there), but Phoenix mode is simply laughable. I don't think I need to go into more detail on this matter. Another cool idea I had would be to introduce "Birthright Mode" and "Conquest Mode." Essentially these modes would function similarly to the Birthright and Conquest campaigns from Fates. One would allow easier map objectives, where the other would have limited experience, gold, and more difficult map objectives. Normal, Hard and Lunatic difficulties would still be present. This could add to the "replayability factor" since there would be two different versions of the same chapter. So, if FE15 implemented something like this, the hardest difficulty would be Classic Mode, Conquest Mode, Lunatic Difficulty. ================================================================================================= Story Finally, here is the touchy subject. Every Fire Emblem game has had a story that's either a derivative or utterly disastrous. IS needs to step it up and find an experienced writer who has experience writing for video games!! If they plan on doing a multi-route game again, I recommend keeping all the paths on one game cartridge. Perhaps the decisions the player makes could be based on tactics. Let's say the player is forced to make a tactical decisions, like invade kingdom A, take the mountain road over the forest route, or retreat from an enemy ambush over duking it out with them. These decisions will yield different endings and recruitable allies. That would be really cool and give more of an immersive experience over (basically) deciding between big tits Camilla or cutie pie Sakura in Fates. Also, the writer for the game better draw inspiration form a major historical battle. I can think of the War of the Roses, Thirty Years' War, and Napoleonic Wars as excellent sources of inspiration for the next Fire Emblem story. We humans have a rich history, and I highly suggest that IS draw upon that treasure trove of information. The human conflict, political ramifications and drama that these wars caused can be used to make a compelling narrative for the next FE game. ================================================================================================= If IS ever reads this post, I pray that they take some of this into consideration... :( Well, that's all I got for now. What do you guys think?