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If you had to pick a non-Japanese writer for a mainline FE, who would you pick?


Sånıc Bÿm
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If you had to pick a non-Japanese writer for a mainline Fire Emblem game, who would you pick? I'm asking specifically non-Japanese because someone over at /r/fireemblem had already basically asked a similar question but keeping it to Japanese writers, and even without any regional stipulations, most FE fans would probably pick a Japanese writer anyway, so it would be interesting to see what choices you guys make if forced to look outside of Japan. As an optional bonus challenge, pick a writer who is neither from Japan nor a predominantly English-speaking country.

My pick would be Michael Kirkbride. He wrote the lore for Morrowind and he continued to write Elder Scrolls lore even after he left Bethesda. I think his writing style would add some really interesting flavor to the world of Fire Emblem.

OPTIONAL BONUS CHALLENGE: The writer(s) for Nehrim: At Fate's Edge. The story and atmosphere completely blow (vanilla) Oblivion out of the water.

EDIT: To clarify, I'm talking about writing for a brand new mainline FE, not rewriting a pre-existing mainline FE.

Edited by Sånıc Bÿm
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From the gaming world: Chris Avellone. Pretty much the only western game writer who hasn't disappointed the hell out of me, and his writing style has plenty of personality.

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In an absolutely perfect world, George R. R. Martin, provided that ASOIAF was finished. He has consistently written excellent characters, and could make a huge cast interesting. His approach to villains especially is what the series could use.

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2 hours ago, Slumber said:

From the gaming world: Chris Avellone. Pretty much the only western game writer who hasn't disappointed the hell out of me, and his writing style has plenty of personality.

YES! This so much. I think it would be a legit darker FE with the good guys also being grey at most. Chris would write a Lord who is not a paragon of justice for once.

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7 hours ago, henrymidfields said:

Can we maybe have either Tom Clancy or Harry Turtledove, and go for a more politically-focused story?

Blah, Turtledove is good at plotting but some of his characters were more one note than some FE chars(like that one guy in the Southern Victory series who kept on bitching about getting sunburned). GRRM would be best suited to Medieval politics, I'd say.

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2 hours ago, blah the Prussian said:

In an absolutely perfect world, George R. R. Martin, provided that ASOIAF was finished. He has consistently written excellent characters, and could make a huge cast interesting. His approach to villains especially is what the series could use.

I nominate him to write a FE4 remake. It seems the closest to ASoIaF/GoT. It has incest and baby killing. GRRM might have trouble making a T rated story since he does M now though...

I'll add Rick Riordan to the list. Love his books. He'd do good with humor.

EDIT - Sorry, didn't catch the part about "it has to be a hypothetical new FE, not an existing one". I still nominate GRRM for a FE4 remake though!

Edited by Dragoncat
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1 hour ago, henrymidfields said:

Can we maybe have either Tom Clancy or Harry Turtledove, and go for a more politically-focused story?

i know these are all hypotheticals that won't happen but

tom clancy is dead

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46 minutes ago, unique said:

i know these are all hypotheticals that won't happen but

tom clancy is dead

Oh yeah if we count dead authors, Brian Jacques! Redwall is similar enough to FE. Just replace the woodland creatures with humanoids. And add magic...

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8 hours ago, Dragoncat said:

I nominate him to write a FE4 remake. It seems the closest to ASoIaF/GoT. It has incest and baby killing. GRRM might have trouble making a T rated story since he does M now though...

I'll add Rick Riordan to the list. Love his books. He'd do good with humor.

EDIT - Sorry, didn't catch the part about "it has to be a hypothetical new FE, not an existing one". I still nominate GRRM for a FE4 remake though!

Really FE4 has so many good ideas, such as the Lopt Sect facing extermination, Travant doing what he does for the good of his people, etc. that it never really follows through on. The plot structure would have to be changed at certain junctures but it could work.

Edit: yeah, Brian Jaques would be great for a more kid friendly FE. Hell, an FE style game inspired by Redwall wouldn't be a bad idea either!

Edited by blah the Prussian
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1 hour ago, Hylian Air Force said:

Tolkien Emblem! Now I actually want an overly long, convoluted, and overly idealistic Fire Emblem game.

I meet your Tolkien and raise  a C. S. Lewis.   although it's hardly likely to see religion returning t mainstream RPGs in anything other than watered down harvest-bounty goddesses and doom cults.

Edited by Reality
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55 minutes ago, Hylian Air Force said:

Now I actually want an overly long, convoluted, and overly idealistic Fire Emblem game.

Will Tetsuya Takahashi suffice? He is now in-house for Nintendo now. As long as XCX2 isn't delayed, I wouldn't bat an eye at it.

I'm not bashing on Takahashi- he just so happens to have what I call "Lucasian ambition". He wants to make full budget multi-part space operas with philosophical, religious, psychological, and ethical themes. The problem? He wants to put them in video games of all potential entertainment media. He could have made a full 5 part Xenogears book series no problem, or perhaps even an anime, but video games and films aren't so cheap to make. The sales didn't come for XG. He walked away during XS Ep. 2 when the guy he left in charge wrecked it (or so I've heard), and he had to truncate a 6 episode plot to 3 as a result (plus sales issues again I think).

Takahashi did tone things down for XC's plot, showing he can show restraint, and worked to develop a gameplay that would sell copies (though I can understand if you don't like it). Then came XCX and he learned how to do HD graphics and cutscenes- at the expense of an atrocious main plot despite a great premise. All we can do is wait and see if he finally gets to write his masterpiece- his life's greatest work. I'm doubtful from what we've seen of XC2 that it'll be it. So I'm placing my hopes in XCX2 for now. This multi-game learning process for Takahashi will be total waste if he never gets to actualize his talents in full.

 

So how would TT do with FE? Well if he didn't sci-fi it up, he'd have the advantage of a franchise with long-established gameplay- so he wouldn't have to worry about that in the slightest. He might give us his old Gnostic Monad-Sophia-Demiurge trinity he employed in XG and XC, which wouldn't be bad if he kept all three away from the big "D Word" in FE (though the conflict will ultimately be humanity vs. god and not humanity vs. itself). We'd also get a Uzuki/Dunban/Nagi figure- one hella badass Jagen with a katana? I'll take it! We might get a KOS-MOS-like figure, and I'll take a powerful lady clad in white. Lastly, I wouldn't mind if he just copy and pasted Fei Fong Wong's entire psychological struggle onto the new lord. It was pretty good, maybe not perfect, but still good- it'd make them more developed than any other lord in FE history. Maybe Armor units could get special transformations that make them into mini Skells.

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George R R Martin would be perfect for a FE4/5 esque game. Tolkien (obviously impossible) would be perfect for a FE8 esque game.

I'd like to see what kind of story a Fire Emblem game would have with Brandon Sanderson, although I think he'd be better off writing for an action RPG like Dark Souls or Dragon's Dogma. Taking Mistborn and the Stormlight Archive as examples, we'd have a complex magic system, fleshed out characters and Supports and pretty much an impossible goal at the end (which isn't uncommon for FE) with a twist.

For videogame writers, pick the first Dragon Age writer(s) and we're set. I'd also like the writer(s) of Warcraft 3.

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26 minutes ago, NekoKnight said:

I'm going to toss my vote for GRRM for excellent character writing/political drama and the writers of Dragon Age Origin for worldbuilding.

 

Knew someone would say this would eventually mention him, and while I think GRRM is great, I don't think he would ever be accept a rated Teen limitation. Although even then I would still kill if GRRM would agree to write an FE story, I wish he would even ask us to pitch ideas for fun, that would be an interesting occurrence.

Edit: Looking above and just realized a lot of people have mentioned GRRM much to my surprise. I thought he wasn't popular on SF.

Edited by Logos
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11 minutes ago, Logos said:

Knew someone would say this would eventually mention him, and while I think GRRM is great, I don't think he would ever be accept a rated Teen limitation. Although even then I would still kill if GRRM would agree to write an FE story, I wish he would even ask us to pitch ideas for fun, that would be an interesting occurrence.

Edit: Looking above and just realized a lot of people have mentioned GRRM much to my surprise. I thought he wasn't popular on SF.

If GRRM wrote the next FE, it would never come out.

I think people on SF are generally adverse to Fire Emblem being as dark and brutal as ASOIAF can be, but I think he'd be a good writer for it. FE can and has been dark, such as

Birthright spoiler

Spoiler

Flora's suicide by self-immolation

Radiant Dawn Spoiler

Spoiler

Lucia's would-be hanging

Sacred Stones Spoiler

Spoiler

Orson going crazy and loving the reanimated corpse of his wife.

Among other things. The only thing FE needs to be is less explicit, even if dark things are alluded to.

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RA Salvatore, pre 1000 orcs series. I think he would be an exellent writer for the type of story Fire Emblem typically has. He does a great job writing characters that are interesting and likeable. He can be very dark when needed (just one look over drow society in menzobarranzen is all you need for that) and be able to have light hearted humor at the same time. He can also write large epic style stories against demons and devils, dragons and monsters, and also write small scale stories about survival, serial killers, politics, etc. He would be a perfect fit for FE writing as far as the standard FE story goes. Past 1000 orcs, but more his Pirate King/Orc King/Ghost King series he really took a dive in writing so current Salvatore would be more of a detriment.

Margaret Weis/Tracy Hickman. I think they do a great job st writing epic stories. Ones that span multiple books and involve fighting deities and dragons, etc. They handled both the Dragonlance series and Twins trilogy really well, and made a good cast of well written characters with a lot of growth throughout the 3 books. One thing I really give these two is their world building. They have created a really interesting and in depth world for Dragonlance, and I think it would really work for Fire Emblem. Everything from Knight orders of both good and evil, wizard orders, cities, kingdoms, history, structure for how their world works and their unique magic system, etc. They did great with Dragonlance, and could do really well with FE.

 

 

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10 hours ago, Logos said:

Knew someone would say this would eventually mention him, and while I think GRRM is great, I don't think he would ever be accept a rated Teen limitation. Although even then I would still kill if GRRM would agree to write an FE story, I wish he would even ask us to pitch ideas for fun, that would be an interesting occurrence.

Edit: Looking above and just realized a lot of people have mentioned GRRM much to my surprise. I thought he wasn't popular on SF.

Why do you say he'd never accept a T rated limitation? The majority of what he's written for ASOIAF is rated T; I think he could be prevailed upon to keep out the sex and particularly brutal violence.

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Just now, blah the Prussian said:

Why do you say he'd never accept a T rated limitation? The majority of what he's written for ASOIAF is rated T; I think he could be prevailed upon to keep out the sex and particularly brutal violence.

I would have to disagree. I think GRRM is the type of dude to appreciate realism, and not hold anything back from his stories. Yes, it is possible for him to do rated T work, but I'm just saying I think ASOIAF is a major success because George is not worried what people think of the all the rated M things mentioned in his books, it's his way of showcasing the cruelty in history, and life. I would love for him to write an FE story, but I just feel a sense of doubt if it came to this scenario of choosing a non-Japanese story writer.

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