Returning Characters

[BubbleOdyssey]

In Fire Emblem Fates they brought back a bevy of old characters, as you all already know. They brought back Owain, Inigo, Severa, Gaius, Cordelia, and Tharja in some form. What characters would you like to see make a cameo in a possible new game? What characters would you hate for them to bring back? How would you bring those characters back in a natural way?

For me I would love to see Owain again. It would be so hilarious to me if he became this world jumping hero. 

[indigoasis]

I think Anna would be a great character to have come back in some form. Maybe as a secret merchant or something if she isn't a playable unit.

Valbar, Kamui, and Leon would be funny. There was that April Fool's joke with them being featured in a title called Fire Emblem: Battle of Revolution. If that game ever seriously happens, then they're basically a shoo-in.

Ike (and potentially Soren/Ranulf, too) also always has a chance to show up again in some capacity (that isn't amiibo or emblem locked) given his ending in Radiant Dawn. It may not have happened (yet), and the closest we've gotten to something like that is Priam, but it'd be cool for him to show up again in the flesh even if just as a cameo.

[Etrurian emperor]

I think Alfonse, Veronica and Sharena could make good cameo characters in some form or another. Hopping between realms is kinda their thing. 

In general I think its important for the global reception of a character to factor in whether they return or not. Part of the reason I hold Asugi in such contempt is because Gaius was never as big a deal as Tharja or Cordelia, and winning one Japanese only popularity poll shouldn't be all it takes to win out over other characters. Tharja and Cordelia were a phenomenon when Awakening came out, but I hardly heard a soul talk about Gaius. In a more representative context he'd likely not have made the cut. 

I also think its important for the character in question to make sense. Owain, Inigo and Severa were free to go wherever they wished after their ending but a character like Alm or Hector would be far too busy to go dimension hopping. Ike and to a lesser extend Lyn meanwhile do have room to emerge in all sort of places.

Purely as a meme pick I'd say Oliver would be very fun to see return. And him traveling dimensions in pursuit of art does seem pretty in character for him. 

[Zapp Branniglenn]

So when I played Conquest I legitimately didn't know that those were returning characters. Because I didn't bother with Awakening's Paralogue Homework to get those extra Gen 2 characters when my roster was already full. Plus their portrayal in Fates was very down to earth when compared to the rest of Fates' cast (your Arthurs, Camillas, and Peris). They had quirks, but they still didn't feel out of place in this world. To be honest, learning the truth kind of marred that perception of them. That they weren't giving me a genuine look at the sorts of people that live and fight for Nohr, but are actually dimensional hopping weirdos just acting out a role because anybody asking what they're really doing here would...embarrass them I guess? A character that happens to be acting out a character in-universe can be very interesting, but multiversal super heroes just make your new universe seem small and insignificant. Fates has enough of that going around.

The best sweetspot of this idea would be the Whitewings in Gaiden/SOV. They show up in a foreign country, not a foreign universe. They have their own agenda, team up with the player, and that's it. All its missing is a reason to stick around after finding Est. Something more compelling than "We MUST repay you for helping us". They weren't sent there by God, they didn't (knowingly) take up arms for Zofia and cause an international incident for their Queen. Zeke is good too. Amnesia's its own cliche, but a Camus-like character given that second chance is always going to be compelling.

[Jotari]

3 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

The best sweetspot of this idea would be the Whitewings in Gaiden/SOV. They show up in a foreign country, not a foreign universe. They have their own agenda, team up with the player, and that's it. All its missing is a reason to stick around after finding Est. Something more compelling than "We MUST repay you for helping us". They weren't sent there by God, they didn't (knowingly) take up arms for Zofia and cause an international incident for their Queen. Zeke is good too. Amnesia's its own cliche, but a Camus-like character given that second chance is always going to be compelling.

You got to it before me. Fatewakening Trio, bad. Whitewings Cameo, good. And I've tried to talk about this topic before, when Fates was new, and the poor handling of Owain, Ingo and Severa kind of neutered a lot of people's interest in the idea. But I think the basic idea of one character from the previous continuity cameoing in the next continuity is a fun idea. Power Rangers did that for years with some of the most celebrated episodes.

6 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I also think its important for the character in question to make sense. Owain, Inigo and Severa were free to go wherever they wished after their ending but a character like Alm or Hector would be far too busy to go dimension hopping. Ike and to a lesser extend Lyn meanwhile do have room to emerge in all sort of places.

Absolutely. I'd much rather they do it by "which character is most sensible" to cameo rather than "which character is most popular". I'd even go as far as to say no lords, ever for something like this. Doesn't matter that Ike vanishes off into the sunset, don't bring him back in an ordinary mainline game. Characters that I do think would work well for cameos.

*Tatiana in Archanea, or rather, Tatiana in Mystery of the Emblem. It'd be nice if she was a power couple with Sirius coming over to help him. Especially if she brought some of the weirdness of Gaiden's gameplay with her and acted unique among the cast. I'd neglect to not also mention Luthier, who specifically has an ending saying he went to Archanea and even shows up in Khadein during the Shadow Dragon manga (which only makes marginal sense, but still cool he was there).

*Caspar and Lindhart have a paired ending where they visit new continents, I believe. Even though neither of them are my favourite characters in Three Houses, I would like to see them again, and Caspar in particular needs to keep Brawling as a thing in this series.

*Lifis is a wonderfully scummy character who has an ending where he vanishes (after apparently organizing the complete eradication of his own former underlings), so I'd be pretty pleased to see him pop up somewhere else. And, much like Tatiana, especially if he can bring some of Thracia's weirdness to his gameplay.

*Deen (Gaiden Deen) He had a reference to a southern continent in his original Gaiden ending. I want a follow up to that. I don't care that it's been 30 years and that the remake removed the line. I don't even like Deen, but give me the Southern Continent!

*L'Arachel. I'm not her biggest fan, but she is a wonderfully quirky high energy character. And yes, she would have responsibilities, being Queen of her country, but she's also the kind of queen to pull a Nailah and just go on a crazy quest. Speaking of which...

*Nailah and or Volug. Cameoing is basically what they're doing in Radiant Dawn already. They're just sort of there. It's as if they are characters from a different game just showing up in Radiant Dawn. So I think we could utilize them again, either for the same purpose, just showing up randomly (and bringing Laguz transformation mechanics with them) or by showing their actual lives in their actual setting with Hatari or any other countries we could retcon to exist out east.

*Sophia has one of those stereotypical disappeared mysteriously for no reason endings, and because she in particular is slower aging, we could see her show up with time having moved a lot or a little relative to her. That leads me on to my next point.

*Any of the child characters only, now they're old because timeline. You know the way we get references in Pokemon to suggest the different regions aren't happening at the same time? Because of the original time skip in Gen II? Yeah, well, that, but with Fire Emblem. Have someone like Ricken or Larum show up somewhere, only now they're proper adults who look and act varying degrees of the same or different. The opposite idea has some potential too, someone like Niime showing up somewhere with a young design, but you run into a bit more continuity snarls if a character apparently had this other world or intercontinental adventure in their youth that they just never mention in their original game, so it'd probably only suit a character sufficiently mysterious about their background, like idk Volke or something if he were so much older that showing off a young version of him would be a novelty.

*Any of the Genealogy substitute units. These guys just don't have their own identities. I just made a thread talking about giving them more original backstories, but just plain using them again in a different context would serves to give them an independent existence. Especially considering, as, mostly commoners, they don't have the same ties to the setting that their noble counterparts do.

 

Edited March 19 by Jotari

[Eltosian Kadath]

8 hours ago, BubbleOdyssey said:

In Fire Emblem Fates they brought back a bevy of old characters, as you all already know. They brought back Owain, Inigo, Severa, Gaius, Cordelia, and Tharja in some form. What characters would you like to see make a cameo in a possible new game? What characters would you hate for them to bring back? How would you bring those characters back in a natural way?

I do find it a little funny that you mention Fates, but not Engage with all it's returning Emblems...also the "return" of Gaius, Cordelia, and Tharja was a bit of a cheat, as they aren't the same characters, just parallel universe doppelgangers.

 

Although to answer the question, it is time to bring back Anna's counterpart Jake.

I would also like IS to show the same kind of guts Kaga did by making the incredibly obscure Shannam into a recurring character for the two Jugdral games. Let's see some more super obscure ones which you might not even see on your first playthrough, like having Karla return, or Stefan, or Illios.

 

5 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I think Alfonse, Veronica and Sharena could make good cameo characters in some form or another. Hopping between realms is kinda their thing. 

On a similar note, Lucina's alter ego "Marth" as basically the hero of the Tempest Trials would make for a fitting returning character, especially if her cousin Owain continues world hopping too.

 

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Power Rangers did that for years with some of the most celebrated episodes.

Its nice to see more people talking positively about Engage like this 😛 

 

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

 

*Any of the Genealogy substitute units. These guys just don't have their own identities. I just made a thread talking about giving them more original backstories, but just plain using them again in a different context would serves to give them an independent existence. Especially considering, as, mostly commoners, they don't have the same ties to the setting that their noble counterparts do.

On a more serious note, this is one of the best suggestions yet. Lets see more of people like Asaello the hitman of Connact, little Charlot, or Jeanne.

[SnowFire]

I'll just say that I think "returning character because it is a sequel set in the same world" a la FE9->FE10, FE6->FE7 (yes I know it's a prequel, but it's a sequel in real life), or FE1->FE2, is so different from "extradimensional visitor" as to be totally different cases.  The first case is always going to be more natural, although you may require some fantasy hand-waving if the time gap is really long (a la Tiki in Awakening).  The second one is...  I mean, it's fine, but it does inherently bake in some idea of linked universes connected by gods & dimensional travel, and this may not be something you REALLY want to focus on too deeply as it raises questions.  In general, I'd say not to do it unless you're going to make multiple dimensions a first class part of the story.  Engage sort of does this, but does it rather badly by backloading all of the revelations to extremely extremely late and not having it make tons of sense and seemingly making up a few rules only to break them literally minutes later (twice!).

Fates is an awkward spot in that I think that the Awakening trio not being super-loud about it was fine for the base game, but very strange once you play the DLC.  And the DLC is good, don't get me wrong, just imply very wacky things happened where Anankos was apparently unable to give even the barest of useful directions and all three of them gave up or something after it being too puzzling to figure out they're looking for Corrin?  Oh well, it's Fates, it's somehow still better and more developed than some of Fates' other plot threads.

FE Heroes gets a slight pass because we all know it's due to gacha finance reality rather than artistic intent necessarily, but just how long have all these characters been kidnapped and mind-controlled in setting?  At some point they need to accept that either they're like Engage Emblems themselves and weird clones stuck in Valhalla, or that they've become mind-controlled Askrans who've abandoned their original realm.

But yeah. In general, use with great caution for games that aren't just sequels, and only if you can somehow make dimensional visitors work without cheapening your own setting.

Edited March 19 by SnowFire

[AzureEmperor]

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Although to answer the question, it is time to bring back Anna's counterpart Jake.

I would also like IS to show the same kind of guts Kaga did by making the incredibly obscure Shannam into a recurring character for the two Jugdral games. Let's see some more super obscure ones which you might not even see on your first playthrough, like having Karla return, or Stefan, or Illios.

I've been thinking the same thing about Anna and Jake for ages! Just have the two of them show up on a random map saying they're traveling during their honeymoon would be really cute and silly, they could also just have it be a different version of the two every time since there are infinite Annas anyway.

And speaking of Kaga I would also love if they brought back Xane consistently like Kaga wanted to do with Emblem Saga, as a divine dragon he has an in-universe reason as to why he doesn't age and since he's naturally a trickster you could make him any kind of class and just say he's messing around at the time.

[Jotari]

15 minutes ago, AzureEmperor said:

since he's naturally a trickster you could make him any kind of class and just say he's messing around at the time.

No. Bring back the Chameleon class. It's loads of fun.

[Metal Flash]

I think Jake could make a fun returning character, he could take the Balistician class with him, but even just a NPC cameo would work.

Seeing a character like Myrrh or Fae  get the Awakening Tiki treatment could be neat.

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

Naga, give me OG dragon lady.

Not her offshoot Tiki, or the other gal Nagi. N-A-G-A.

 

Didn´t SoV bring back Camus? Wait, Zeke exists in Gaiden already. I´ll take a free Gradivus in every FE going forward tyvm.

[Use the Falchion]

For returning characters who are from previous games, Lucina is the top of my list. I can see other characters possibly showing up, like Alear or Yunaka, but they feel less likely to me. 

What I'd love to see return are the Incarnations, like Tharja and Rhajat, Gaius and Asugi, and Caeldori and Cordelia. I'd love to see genderswapped incarnations in games with children in the future, espeically for the House Leaders and the Fates royalty. 

Edited April 1 by Use the Falchion

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

I'd rather not see any more "world-hopping", please and thank you. Let Elibe be Elibe, Magvel be Magvel, so on and so forth. Give me characters who are actually tied to the land, and whose personal histories actually shed light on the world they inhabit.

On 3/19/2024 at 1:24 AM, AzureEmperor said:

I've been thinking the same thing about Anna and Jake for ages! Just have the two of them show up on a random map saying they're traveling during their honeymoon would be really cute and silly, they could also just have it be a different version of the two every time since there are infinite Annas anyway.

Jake is one of the few I'm happy to see return, alongside Anna. Although, in that case, it's not "world-hopping", so much as "different characters who just so happen to share a name and a face."

On 3/19/2024 at 1:41 AM, Jotari said:

No. Bring back the Chameleon class. It's loads of fun.

Totally unrelated, but... yeah, do this as well. A real shame it was only around once... well, twice... well, four times.

[Jotari]

27 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Totally unrelated, but... yeah, do this as well. A real shame it was only around once... well, twice... well, four times.

No Xane is the real reason BS Archanea Saga gets ignored.

[Samz707]

On 3/18/2024 at 7:19 PM, BubbleOdyssey said:

In Fire Emblem Fates they brought back a bevy of old characters, as you all already know. They brought back Owain, Inigo, Severa, Gaius, Cordelia, and Tharja in some form. What characters would you like to see make a cameo in a possible new game? What characters would you hate for them to bring back? How would you bring those characters back in a natural way?

For me I would love to see Owain again. It would be so hilarious to me if he became this world jumping hero. 

Outside of maybe references with similar but clearly not intended to be literally the same characters, not really.

I like FE being standalone and it doesn't help I did not like any of the characters that returned in Fates.

At most, I'd like a small joke where you meed an NPC who's suspiciously similar but not supposed to literally be them as an in-joke.

As people mentioned, it at least makes sense in Shadows of Valentia/Gaiden because those are explicitly the same universe and the fact they travelled to Valentia has an actual reason.

As opposed to the Awakening characters who are in Fates purely because popular and with (from what I've seen) a half-assed excuse locked away in DLC.

I only want to see any returning characters if it makes sense (Like SOV) instead of more multiverse nonsense. 

Edited April 3 by Samz707