The word "Echoes" and "series of remakes" notion

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Boom, sounds like a wrap to me. ~

[VincentASM]

Hehe, I'm surprised I was wrong, but I'm happy to have an official answer.

Can't wait for the full interview!

[shadowofchaos]

Well then, I will be a man about this and pretty much admit that I'm wrong about their initial thought process.

There is no way to misinterpret it. I was 100% wrong on my presumptions. They were literally thinking with an English perspective.

Though...

What are they going to do about the Japanese referring to FE15 as "FE Echoes" though?

It's interesting to note (the part he didn't translate) was spot on... that they couldn't reuse "Gaiden" and was looking for a replacement word.

33 minutes ago, Gustavos said:

Boom, sounds like a wrap to me. ~

 

Edit:

41 minutes ago, Kirokan said:

『外伝」はやめようという話は、かなり初期から決まっていました。また、全世界で同じタイトルにしたいという思いから英語で考えからという話になり、そのなかで「ＥＣＨＯＥＳ］（こだま）という言葉が浮かびました。

Quote

We thought we shouldn't use "Gaiden" again for the title right from the start of the project. But we wanted a title that had the same effect like we did with the world. So we tried thinking of an English equivalent to replace it. That's when we were inspired to use "Echoes".

Wait a minute.

From that context it's an afterthought.

Their original intention was just to literally replace the Gaiden title.

And they're pleased with the title "Echoes" that they would like to use it again *if* there are remakes.

The title "Echoes" wasn't made for the purpose of implying other remakes. It was directly to replace the 外伝. But was so good they want to use it if there's a chance to.

So I'm wrong, but not completely wrong.

I'll wait for Kirokan's final word.

Edited April 25, 2017 by shadowofchaos

[Captain Karnage]

so, I was partly correct?

I'll take it as a victory as it looks like "Echoes" has a different meaning than when it was originally pitched as a replacement to the word "gaiden"

[shadowofchaos]

12 minutes ago, Captain Karnage said:

so, I was partly correct?

I'll take it as a victory as it looks like "Echoes" has a different meaning than when it was originally pitched as a replacement to the word "gaiden"

They actually wanted to come up one word with synonyms to "Gaiden".

It's like looking at the finished product of a project and you're like "Yeah that sounds like a good brand. Maybe we can make it a brand."

So while you are correct with "Echoes can be a subseries". You weren't correct with their intention. Their intention was to replace the word "Gaiden" with something else in English. It was never to hint at making a subseries.

Edited April 25, 2017 by shadowofchaos

[Slumber]

I'm happy, even if I was initially convinced by this thread that "Echoes" was just a call back to "Gaiden".

At least they're being upfront about being open to more remakes.

Edited April 26, 2017 by Slumber

[King Marth 64]

I totally think we need to wait and see how they'll explain about the Echoes name will be answered incase if the developers from Echoes: Shadows of Valentia make an interview talking about the game and some of the people from the interview that will might ask about why they choose Echoes for the title for a clearer confirmation? I don't know if that Echoes name part of the title is really considered to be a sub-series for remakes since Shadow Dragon and New Mystery of the Emblem never have Echoes in those two titles. I totally think the Echoes name part is most likely just used it as for the remake name title for Gaiden. But, if they didn't mentioned about the Echoes name without an explanation for years and Intelligent Systems is going to make the Judrgal and Elibe remakes have Echoes in the title for another couple years, then I'll considered the Echoes title as a Subseries for remakes.

Edited April 26, 2017 by King Marth 64

[Darthkeeper]

On 4/24/2017 at 0:35 PM, shadowofchaos said:

Attack on Titan became official. And it sounds bad.

I don't think it sounds "bad", per say. It does sound a little awkward (and is), especially when I first heard about it. However, it's not like it doesn't make sense. From a translation perspective, yeah it's pretty bad.

Anyway I personally had a mixed view on "Echoes". I am fully aware that Japan tends to just throw in "cool" English words. However I, evidently so, was mislead the title was "Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia" because of said popular belief. Even then I took it with a grain of salt, as opposed to some people who are really convinced it's the sub series name. I think that's how most people saw it, as a possibility not really a sure fire thing. However, you probably know that and are just frustrated at the misconception.

[Captain Karnage]

2 hours ago, shadowofchaos said:

They actually wanted to come up one word with synonyms to "Gaiden".

It's like looking at the finished product of a project and you're like "Yeah that sounds like a good brand. Maybe we can make it a brand."

So while you are correct with "Echoes can be a subseries". You weren't correct with their intention. Their intention was to replace the word "Gaiden" with something else in English. It was never to hint at making a subseries.

yes, but that decision was probably made before the game was announced, so if it weren't I'd assume that the name would have been Fire Emblem: Echoes Shadows of Valentia instead of Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia

[shadowofchaos]

21 minutes ago, Captain Karnage said:

yes, but that decision was probably made before the game was announced, so if it weren't I'd assume that the name would have been Fire Emblem: Echoes Shadows of Valentia instead of Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia

Karnage, you're not getting it.

There is no colon in Japanese.

Those colons are put by you. They have no significance by the way you're imply. Ice_Dragon wrote a whole essay for you.

The decision, as said in Japanese, was put in a way that implies the devs are only saying their opinons at the end of wanting to use it again.

The meaning behind Echoes was ONLY to replace the word Gaiden. There was never any hint that it was designed to imply a subseries right from the start. The devs said it as "looking back". Which is after the project was finished.

Darthkeeper is pretty much describing my frustration with non Japanese speakers.

 

The following two things are what we got:

1. Echoes was the English word inspired to replace Gaiden.

2. After looking back, they like the significance of the word so much, that if remakes happen, they want to use it again.

 

Your previous points of "The word Echoes standing out, implying a subseries just from it being strange or significant" is pretty much said to be incorrect.

There wasn't meaning of "possible subseries" until after project completion. There was no intention of "we will make more remakes" from the word.

As for me, I am incorrect if people misinterpreted me saying that "Echoes won't be used as a subseries title, period".

Edited April 26, 2017 by shadowofchaos

[Zapp Branniglenn]

5 hours ago, shadowofchaos said:

They actually wanted to come up one word with synonyms to "Gaiden".

It's like looking at the finished product of a project and you're like "Yeah that sounds like a good brand. Maybe we can make it a brand."

Hm, I'm still hung up on the line of "we put a lot of thought into the name Echoes...". Sort of implies the opposite of "afterthought" . But debating semantics between languages won't lead us anywhere fast. Whether or not a sub series of remakes was pre-empted sounds like sensitive information. Game companies shouldn't get in a habit of announcing games until they're well into development - much less before development starts. So if a series of remakes is in their longterm gameplan, I'm doubt they'll spill the beans in an interview. They naturally want to see how Echoes will be received before counting their chickens. 

Still hoping for the question: Why Gaiden? I'm genuinely interested in this.

[Slumber]

24 minutes ago, Gustavos said:

Still hoping for the question: Why Gaiden? I'm genuinely interested in this.

Because 3DS. Gaiden, while connected to FE1 and 3/FE11 and FE12, is only connected very, very loosely.

As development moves to the Switch, the 3DS is on its way out. There are really only two standalone games they could have remade to give the 3DS one last hurrah at this point: FE2, and FE8. FE2 has more significance overall, and it was the odd duck out, considering FE1 and 3 were already remade.

If they had remade FE4 or FE6, there's no guarantee that we'd see the games directly related to them would be remade(We'll need to see if Echoes does well). If they were remade, you'd end up with the awkward situation where FE4 or FE6 would probably be on the 3DS, while FE5 or FE7 would be remade on the Switch in all likelihood. This compounds when, if they remake FE4 or FE6, the follow-ups would probably use a lot of the same assets. If no more games come out for the 3DS, they'd make these assets for the 3DS, then essentially remake them for the Switch version, only to ditch them when they move on to the next game.

TL;DR: Gaiden is less of an investment overall, and it didn't need to be remade with a direct follow-up in mind.

Edited April 26, 2017 by Slumber

[Xaos Steel Wing]

I feel like this topic is much fuss about nothing. People looking way too much into a single word in the title.

There is indeed some logic to the idea that the "Echoes" part of the title being indicative of a series of remakes. But "Echoes" could just as well have referred to "echoes of the past" (past referring to the original game) or even "echoes of war" relating to the in game story. Or even just being a word to indicate in the title that this game is a remake.

As for the notion of "Echoes" as a series of remakes... let's not forget that this is actually the third remake of a Fire Emblem game we're getting. Remakes of FE1 and 3 were made even before the series' popularity spiked with Awakening. There's nothing new in the idea of remaking the old FE games. The existence of Echoes itself indicates that they are still open to remaking older Fire Emblem games in the post-Awakening era of Fire Emblem (beyond the two DS remakes we already got), we don't need to look to the title for additional confirmation of that.

There's already been remakes of the first three games, that leaves three more that were only released in Japan. I think it's perfectly natural for them to want to remake those games eventually, and if Echoes doesn't bomb sales wise outside of Japan and new Fire Emblem games continue to sell well, I don't see why they wouldn't eventually want to remake FE4,5, and 6 (maybe somehow paired with 7) down the road.

@Kirokan Thanks for being on top of things and finding and translating that tidbit for us! Now we have the official word.

@Gustavos Why Gaiden?

It's the oldest Fire Emblem that hasn't been remade yet. It was released 25 years ago on the NES. It had a lot of mechanics and attributes unique to it that aren't really seen in other games. Not many are familiar with it.

It seems to make more sense to remake the older games first before remaking games released more recently on later hardware generations, that are less "outdated" in terms of hardware limitations and that more people are familiar with. The newer the game, the less it was held back by hardware limitations, and the less of a point there is to the remake.

 

Edited April 26, 2017 by XaosLogos

[Punished Dayni]

Well, turns out the devs are considering using it anyway, much as they weren't using Echoes like that before.

TLDR: It's true from a certain point of view

(Also, yes I was one of those who thought Echoes was equal to remake series possiblity)

[shadowofchaos]

9 hours ago, Gustavos said:

Hm, I'm still hung up on the line of "we put a lot of thought into the name Echoes...". Sort of implies the opposite of "afterthought" . But debating semantics between languages won't lead us anywhere fast. Whether or not a sub series of remakes was pre-empted sounds like sensitive information. Game companies shouldn't get in a habit of announcing games until they're well into development - much less before development starts. So if a series of remakes is in their longterm gameplan, I'm doubt they'll spill the beans in an interview. They naturally want to see how Echoes will be received before counting their chickens. 

Still hoping for the question: Why Gaiden? I'm genuinely interested in this.

Japanese is very context heavy. From the way Kirokan translated the last part of the paragraph, it seemed like it was the original plan. However from the part be didn't translate, it implies the opposite.

The plan of "put a lot of thought into it" was for replacing the word Gaiden. Not "put a lot of thought into it to make a brand".

But alas, like you said, debating linguistics is pretty pointless.

The jist of it is, it *COULD* be a subseries now. But also made clear that the original intention of "Echoes" was a replacement for "Gaiden".

Literally where we started with the topic.

As a translator, I hate it when people take things out of context and jump to conclusions. Which is the very reason I was annoyed enough to even start this topic in the first place.

Edit: From what Kirokan has been telling me of progress on the translation (he needs sleep) the term "Echoes" came about because they were looking for a title not to confuse players.

Quote

There's some more fun info in here, so I can't wait to share. But yes the part about the Echoes title seems they wanted to avoid Gaiden to not confuse players as you surmised from before (and so avoided "New Gaiden" as they were originally going to do)

But need to sleep... so hopefully will have it done when I get back from work tomorrow. Sorry for the delay!

 

"Shin Gaiden" sounds like a gibberish word.

Edited April 26, 2017 by shadowofchaos

[Tolvir]

nvm, someone already posted it.

 

Edited April 26, 2017 by Tolvir

[shadowofchaos]

Wow. Nintendoeverything pre-emptively reported this thread and Kirokan's post out of context without waiting for the full interview.

Literally everything I was annoyed at and caused me to make this thread.

The irony.

Absolutely disgusting.

Edited April 26, 2017 by shadowofchaos

[VincentASM]

7 minutes ago, shadowofchaos said:

Wow. Nintendoeverything pre-emptively reported this thread and Kirokan's post out of context without waiting for the full interview.

Literally everything I was annoyed at and caused me to make this thread.

The irony.

Absolutely disgusting.

Yeah, I got no sympathy for that kind of reporting. Like I said elsewhere, I appreciate the share, but they could've waited a bit more before jumping the gun.

Worst bit was when they had no idea which magazine it was from.

Anyway, I hope it doesn't spread much. I don't think Kirokan would like it if that happened...

[Dr. Tarrasque]

Well, the outcome of this certainly is amusing. If there's anything to take away from this thread, there is this:

You can speculate and read into details all you want but until it comes from the horse's mouth, it shouldn't be seen. Software Engineers and Developers are people too, never assume they've thought of everything when it comes to names because in truth, a name will often just be a placeholder to reference something and many people involved don't really give a shit what it's called.

[shadowofchaos]

4 minutes ago, VincentASM said:

Yeah, I got no sympathy for that kind of reporting. Like I said elsewhere, I appreciate the share, but they could've waited a bit more before jumping the gun.

Worst bit was when they had no idea which magazine it was from.

Anyway, I hope it doesn't spread much. I don't think Kirokan would like it if that happened...

With 103 retweets, misinformation spread in progress.

Absolutely disgusting.

[VincentASM]

5 minutes ago, shadowofchaos said:

With 103 retweets, misinformation spread in progress.

Absolutely disgusting.

Hmm, yeah, it's not looking promising.

I am already banging my head against the wall on reddit.

If Kirokan sees this, it's not their fault at all. We were all excited to get some info straight from the developers. Although maybe we should've just waited patiently. Next time, we'll definitely have to do that...

[Ertrick36]

18 hours ago, shadowofchaos said:

What are they going to do about the Japanese referring to FE15 as "FE Echoes" though?

It's probably just the same reason English speakers would call it that; it's shorter, and is right there in bigger font than the rest of the subtitle.

For the record, I was more inclined to support your word than the word of all the people claiming that the word would indicate a whole series of remakes; I think unless we actually get word on stuff like that, it's wishful thinking to automatically assume that the title indicates anything of great import, even if it supposedly was "Fire Emblem Echoes: Another Hero King" in Japan.

That being said, I'm still gonna be cautious.  It's still only a possibility; I'm not going to believe anything until I see "Fire Emblem: Echoes ~ Generations of Jugdral" or whatever from official channels.  And I don't think there's any way you could actually interpret it as "they're absolutely going to make more remakes" unless the rest of the interview indicates otherwise.

Also, hi, Nintendoeverything and those who were directed here by them  And hi GameFAQs, since I saw someone link this thread there.

[shadowofchaos]

13 minutes ago, Ertrick36 said:

It's probably just the same reason English speakers would call it that; it's shorter, and is right there in bigger font than the rest of the subtitle.

For the record, I was more inclined to support your word than the word of all the people claiming that the word would indicate a whole series of remakes; I think unless we actually get word on stuff like that, it's wishful thinking to automatically assume that the title indicates anything of great import, even if it supposedly was "Fire Emblem Echoes: Another Hero King" in Japan.

That being said, I'm still gonna be cautious.  It's still only a possibility; I'm not going to believe anything until I see "Fire Emblem: Echoes ~ Generations of Jugdral" or whatever from official channels.  And I don't think there's any way you could actually interpret it as "they're absolutely going to make more remakes" unless the rest of the interview indicates otherwise.

Also, hi, Nintendoeverything and those who were directed here by them  And hi GameFAQs, since I saw someone link this thread there.

That gamefaqs thread is a mess. I thought about correcting them, but the topic is so far gone off topic I shouldn't even bother.

[Ertrick36]

Just now, shadowofchaos said:

That gamefaqs thread is a mess. I thought about correcting them, but the topic is so far gone off topic I shouldn't even bother.

Yeah, I wouldn't bother with that lol.  It seems that always happens with every 100+ posts thread, unless it's an RP thread or whatever.  Which honestly is sometimes for the best, because those arguments get really heated really fast.  Better they start talkin' waifus or whatever than verbally eviscerating each other over a single gay character being introduced into a game for 500 posts.

[Elieson]

3 hours ago, shadowofchaos said:

Wow. Nintendoeverything pre-emptively reported this thread and Kirokan's post out of context without waiting for the full interview.

Literally everything I was annoyed at and caused me to make this thread.

The irony.

Absolutely disgusting.

At least they cited Kirokan through NintendoEverything Brian, who found this post on some site, translating some line of text probably from some japanese magazine