Emblem Saga interview

[VincentASM]

The original interview, conducted by Famitsu, had been lying around in my files for a few things, so I thought I'd finally translate it. Unfortunately, I only have the second page of the interview and it looks like some details weren't included in the first place. I'm hoping anything that's missing wasn't of much importance anyway.

Some details on Emblem Saga, which also includes bits from this interview, can be found here.

---Will characters from previous games make a return?

Kaga: A certain shape-shifting youth will have an important role, in the guise of a mysterious bard and sage. Since this game occurs in the same time period as the first game, Dark Dragon and Sword of Light, more characters may return if the need arises.

---Dark Dragon and Sword of Light takes place at the same time, so that must mean the main hero is related to Marth!

Kaga: No, not quite. These two games aren't directly related. Although a young hero like Marth will appear as well...

---You just mentioned that a young hero like Marth would appear "as well", what does that mean?

Kaga: Oh, that! Like in past games, the game's story will be centered around a young prince, but that doesn't mean there will only be one main character.

There will be multiple main characters? Gaiden-style elements of the game

Kaga: I've always thought that allowing players to choose the main character would be interesting. This time, there will be multiple "armies" that can be controlled on the world map. As for which characters can lead an army, each character has a rich background, so any character has the potential to become a main character. Although the missions that each army can undertake is fixed, but there will be a lot of freedom from the middle and onwards, and you can focus on your favourite army to progress the story.

---Has the properties of each army already been decided from the start?

Kaga: Of course, the starting attributes will be fixed to some extent, but they will change depending on the player's methods of playing. This time, we've considered various areas related to each army's attributes. Based on these areas, players can make their own decisions as to how to personalise their characters. For example, if you only fight in arenas, by the end of the game, your army may become proficient in arena battles, but it may be weak in group battles. Another example, say you constantly battle cave monsters, perhaps your army will become invincible against monsters, but their personalities will become negatively affected.

---Sounds very interesting! So, depending on the enemy and location, the properties and personalities of the armies will undergo change.

Kaga: Additionally, character growth will also be related to their relationships with others. If two unrelated characters fight together in the same army, perhaps they will become lovers or close friends by the end...

---A lot of effort has been made to craft character growth, I bet this will also affect the story!

Kaga: There is another new change related to growth. Past characters possessed something known as growth rates, which is basically using fixed chances to decide growth. This time, instead, there will be growth curves, which vary according to character. This allows us to have things such as fast growth and slow growth types!

---I see. So if you don't try out each character, then you won't know which characters are good or bad.

Kaga: That's right. Although they start off weak, but by the end they may become shockingly good!

---Next up, I want to ask about the game's difficulty level. Why have you created this game in the image of Gaiden, which is considered a low-difficulty strategy game?

Kaga: About this problem, we have various means to solve this. One would be to design the story battles to increase the strategic challenge. Not to mention, the artificial intelligence has been given a huge upgrade, and the enemies will be very efficient in both strategy and combat. Also, because battles utilise an isometric perspective and units have their own direction, ancient basic war strategies like rear attacking or surround and annihilate can be faithfully recreated. To incorporate war strategies used by famous generals like Hannibal and Caesar into the games has been one of my goals.

---As well as these, are there other new elements?

Kaga: Although I cannot describe them all at this current stage, but in the future, there will probably be endurance and funds to consider. Endurance will reduce after performing actions or when attacked by an enemy. After falling below the halfway point, it will reduce the character's fighting ability and when it reaches 0 the character will be incapicitated. As for funds, this is used to pay for units, and is deducted from your possessed gold whenever the army moves. There will be many methods to increase the amount of gold in possession, but the most effective is to utilise Emblems. When an army possesses an Emblem, they will be recognised as an official squadron of their kingdom, allowing for an increase in income each turn.

---What other methods of gaining gold are there?

Kaga: Other methods include investigating caves and ruins, fighting in the arena, sending mercenaries on missions and Thieves can also obtain gold.

---I see. To finish off, can I ask about any new features that we can expect due to developing for the Playstation?

Kaga: Is that it? I am personally interested in where the save date is stored, which is outside of the physical software. We are considering making the save files for this game affect the next game. If it becomes a series, the situation may arise where characters from this game pass on their attributes to the next. Although I say this, but this is still very far from now, so I don't know what may become of this idea. In any case, I hope that this product will leave a good impression on players. Please look forward to it!

My own comments:

It's interesting to see how much of a successor to the Fire Emblem series Emblem/TearRing Saga was intended to be, especially the bit about taking place during the same time as FE1. I don't think Xane (that's who Kaga is referring to, right?) makes an appearance in the final game though, for obvious reasons.

And not just Xane, a lot of the elements that Kaga mentioned didn't really make it into the final version either. Of course, most of the Gaiden-like elements remained, but not things like the isometric view, multiple armies (at the same time), growth curves and fatigue. Kaga also stated how he wanted the game to have a high difficulty level, but TRS ended up being a pushover mostly (although apparently it's because they focused too much on the story and not the gameplay).

[Icon of Sin]

That's an interesting "could've been". TearRing Saga with fatigue and growth curves would've likely made things interesting, especially if they decided to add stronger enemies as well. The whole "fatigue weakens you at half and under" kinda reminds me of what they did in FE5 Tordo, but there you'd lose your fighting ability and movement only after fatigued went over your HP. This said, I hope they would've made the fatigue only reset when you do an ingame chapter, rather than a random encounter to prevent abuse. As for growth curves, that's another great idea for army customization. Perhaps in a future project we'll finally see some of that.

[Light Lord]

Cool, it sounds interesting and promising. I would like to see what IS and the future have in store for Fire Emblem.

I just hope it won't be limited to only Wii or DS/DSi/3DS, but other consoles for FE to get mor epublic adn fans too.

Just my thoughts.

[Hardin]

Cool, it sounds interesting and promising. I would like to see what IS and the future have in store for Fire Emblem.

I just hope it won't be limited to only Wii or DS/DSi/3DS, but other consoles for FE to get mor epublic adn fans too.

Just my thoughts.

Impossible, Fire Emblem is owned by Nintendo and can only appear on Nintendo consoles.

Very interesting interview. It's amazing to see the concepts that Kaga had in the early production of TRS. I guess he didn't understand much of the legality surrounding intellectual property at the time.

[Light Lord]

Impossible, Fire Emblem is owned by Nintendo and can only appear on Nintendo consoles.

Oh well, not that I have another console other than Nintendo, but eitherway its okay with me.

And I just read the interview again, I like the sound of "lovers" or "pretty close", maybe supported endings will be back?

Also, I kind of remembered Yugioh Falsebound Kingdom where you had to pay to move soldiers and monsters with you as they grew stronger and you advanced the story.