Should we be able to recruit all playable units in the same playthrough?

[DragonLord]

I think your choices should affect who you get, like alternate routes. It would increase replayability, which I'm all for.

[Sentacotus]

It could be interesting and regardless of what they try to do I'll buy it but personally I'm a bit of a completionist and OCD when it comes to getting all the characters so something just wouldn't sit right with me.

[NinjaMonkey]

I hope so, although we'll probably have to jump through several hoops beforehand.

[HowTragic]

Devs are usually pretty good with allowing you to play even (non-generic) enemy chars in some way, shape or form. Since there'll likely be a "Creature Campaign-isn" Epilogue as opposed to the Trials maps of FE9/10, I'd assume that you will be able to use all playable character after clearing the game and meeting certain unlocking requirements, as forcing you to beat the game X amount of times seems too much of an overkill. Frankly, I wouldn't mind running a Lagdou Ruin-esque endgame dungeon multiple times for some kickass characters. In fact, give me back Lagdou Ruin already.

[euklyd]

well I mean

you basically had that as the spotpass paralogues in fe13

I would be surprised if they had things besides those tbh

[Mirron]

Post game chapers is the best way to handle it. For the in-game stuff? I'd like it so that your choice matters and you're limited character-wise. Maybe do a third route after beating both where both sides work together to defeat some mystery third side, but that's the only other compromise I can think of.

[Rxmonste]

Do I want to recruit them all? I'm a bit OCD so yeah.

Will we be able to recruit them all? I doubt it, since Iwata mentioned how choices in this particular FE game are gonna be bigger than ever. And the trailer makes me believe there will be a faction system or something like that. We won't know until later, I suppose.

Edited January 22, 2015 by Rxmonste

[Armaada J]

As much as I want to recruit everyone, I wouldnt mind not being able to if there was a legitimate ingame reason. WH=hat might work is if in the event we can choose sides, there are a few different characters to recruit. The, the charaters from the other route become availabe in a postgame.

[Neoleo21]

I don't know why people are pushing that IS will stick to everything they did in Awakening, if this were the case then FE8 would've had similar progression to FE7 given that it was the best selling fire emblem period at that point, which would have meant no map, no split route and no creature campaign. We know awakening's theme was "relationships" the Iwata Asks interview confirmed it. We know here that IS have decided on "choices matter" has their theme for this game from smaller choices on the battlefield to larger ones on the story, what that actually means in execution I'm curious to see.

I feel that there will be some miss able units on a given play through. Do I want people I have in the party already to die ala the banner Saga?, of course not, I actually greatly disliked that about that game.

[powerserg]

I think we will get almost every character, maybe not rival army leaders, maybe a character will die in plot by choosing sides but almost everyone if you put in the work to get them.

[tacticianjenro]

I feel that there will be some miss able units on a given play through. Do I want people I have in the party already to die ala the banner Saga?, of course not, I actually greatly disliked that about that game.

Banner Saga was amazing for that but made the game extremely hard. I definitely don't see FE going in that direction, but who knows? Iwata says there will be things that have never been in any other FE game ever

Also interesting to see something like a 'Nils' character, where an important useable plot-related unit dies ala Ninian but is replaced by a different useable character.

[Eveangaline]

Yes. God Yes I want to be able to recruit them all. I want to go 100% completionist on the supports and making it that much harder for me to do so is - actually now that I think about it, if they return "you can get all the supports with everyone in a game except the S supports" then maybe I wouldn't mind some mutually exclusive units, because it won't make me replay it a thousand times to get every support. If we're back to five a game then heeeeck no gimmie every unit.

Edited January 24, 2015 by Eveangaline

[Topaz Light]

Knowing so little about the story they have in mind, I honestly can't say with absolute certainty.

However, I think that having mutually-exclusive characters would be a great way to lend additional weight to an emphasis on player choice. My only desire is that their mutual exclusivity make sense plotwise, rather than having them just be mutually-exclusive for the sake of it.

[Nébulya]

No, this would be more interesting with choices having consequence,..

But not having all characters is troubling, but I can live with that. (or a system like Tactics Ogre Let Us Cling Together? :))

[Moliblazer]

Honestly, after what they did with FE13, my guess is that we`ll have some sort of Spotpass or DLC post-game map that will allow us to recruit every unit.

[Raguna]

Seeing as there is no information on the plot except speculation, I want to reason that yes we can recruit all the characters in the game but maybe not in the first playthrough. Big choices don't necessarily mean the loss of characters (although I'm sure that there might be choices like that) but since we need to take a side, we'll want to play a second playthrough just for completion's sake. To experience the other side's struggle and possibly get their units. You end up feeling terrible for killing them last time and even worse when you kill your previous companions in battle which adds to replay value. Maybe after finishing both routes, Kamui himself will lead a third side and everyone can be recruited for the epic finale.

Heck who knows maybe the two armies at one point will join together to fight a growing number of giant rock golems. God knows I have no idea how the support system will work if characters are barred to specific factions and even worse if kids are involved.

[saifors]

Yes please, it killed my inner completionist when I couldn't get everyone in fe7.

I don't care if it's by some ridiculous condition, I count any non recruited unit as a dead unit.

[DarkSage764]

Personally, I enjoy characters that you get in the first playthrough, so that way you don't feel like you HAVE to play the game again. (even though you probably will anyways.) Plus when talking to people who are either A: Casual, B: People who don't want to play the game more than once, or C: People who didn't know that there was another character and would play the game again but they can't/won't or don't want to play the game again, one can talk about and relate to what characters they liked/disliked since they will have gotten a chance to get every character.

[Respite&Nepenthe]

I hope there's another story path after you beat he game the first time, personally, kinda like how you unlock Lunatic+ mode after beating the game on Lunatic. There shouldn't be a difficulty requirement in this, though.

[Kikirini]

If the game ends up having us choose one side, then no, I don't mind not getting every character.

It's more important to me that I get every character on my route...unless it has Shadow Dragon's recruitment requirements.

[Wayward Alchemist]

Yes, like you can chose a side in a somewhat comical skirmish between two petty rivals and you can only recruit one, or maybe you'd have to kill off one person to recruit another, and so on. That would make army selection more than mindlessly picking "good units" and pairing them with "good spouses" to create "good kids" like Awakening, especially if the "Choose a Recruit" characters have exceptional growths and skill sets or have exceptional children.

[Armaada J]

Maybe something like the choice from Shadow Dragon, where you pick either Arran or Samson?

[ClevelandSteve]

Depends on how it's done. If there are multiple branching choices like Iwata suggested but only one set of choices allows you to get everyone, then that hurts replayability quite a bit because I could never bring myself to go on a path of not getting everyone when an option to recruit everyone exists. Also, putting all the cool characters on one path would also make me never want to do the other path (admittedly, which characters are and aren't cool is entirely subjective so there's no way IS can plan to avoid putting all of anyone's favorites on one route). And if you want to make everyone recruitable despite branching storylines there needs to be a reason for it. Like some other people brought up, Sacred Stones was kinda lazy in this regard.

So, I'd be fine with all characters being recruitable if there's more than one story path you can take to get everyone and the justification for everyone joining you no matter your choices makes sense. However, I'd also think it would be a great boost for replayability if your choices affected which characters you can get (and I'd prefer if not every character I like was on one path so I'd have a reason to play the other path, but I understand that personally liking and disliking characters is completely subjective so there will probably be at least some players who will have all of their favorites be on one path no matter what).

[Roflolxp54]

I'd love to be able recruit all characters on the first playthrough. However, I can see developers make certain characters be NG+ just to add replay value to the game.

Of note is that I would like more bonus units to be recruited and larger Avatar Logbook if something similar to legacy characters and bonus units were to be implemented like in Awakening.

[Garnef]

With spotpass being a thing, players could totally be allowed to get characters they can't get on one playthrough through a hidden spotpass mission, like Gangrel or something.

There shouldn't be a ton of units being missable though, since I'm pretty sure nobody wants "Arran and Samson's Excellent Adventure".