Fire Emblem 64 = Tear Ring Saga?

[VulneqSVB/=]

So, you guys have heard of the Fire Emblem 64DD installment that got cancelled, right? The one that could've been FE6, or another Archanean installment altogether?

Or how about Emblem Saga, the game that took place at around the same time as FE11, which became Tear Ring Saga, the subject of a lawsuit filed by Nintendo?

Shouzou Kaga, the creator of Fire Emblem, handled the development over all installments of the Fire Emblem franchise, up until Thracia 776. He was also expressing an interest in the then latest Nintendo platform, the Nintendo 64, thinking about how Fire Emblem would be developed for it. He talked about how the battle scenes would use 3D models for those who are attacking, and was highly interested in developing another installment in the Archanea saga of Fire Emblem games, possibly focusing on Camus' background. The Nintendo 64 would have an add-on called the Nintendo 64 Disk Drive, which enabled games on a grander scale such as the first version of the first installment of Pokémon Stadium, the Mario Artist series and the F-Zero X Expansion Kit to be released. Upon release, however, it bombed, leaving several games proposed for the platform, some of which included Enix's Dragon Quest VII and Quest's Ogre Battle 64 either unreleased and ported to other platforms or released as an ordinary Nintendo 64 cartridge, respectively. Fire Emblem 64 was one of the games announced for it, but no one knows what came about of it.

Interestingly enough, Squaresoft, a company famous for their many, many role-playing games such as Final Fantasy VI, Live A Live and Bahamut Lagoon controversially chose to use the Sony-branded PlayStation over the 64, due to the CD format of its video games, with a higher capacity, even over multiple discs, their Final Fantasy VII becoming the PlayStation's killer app. That was what the Nintendo 64DD wanted to accomplish: make up for the cheaper-to-produce, faster cartridges with the use of higher-capacity discs that could deliver better quality than its pre-existing games. Role-playing games required a media capable of storing several musical tracks, a battle system, breathtakingly detailed and stunning visuals, many classes and characters, a sprawling world and of course an engrossing, intriguing story. Therefore, many games in the genre such as Parasite Eve, Suikoden and Legend of Dragoon were proof that role-playing games proliferated on the PlayStation, compared to the RPG-light Nintendo 64, much more famous for its platformers andaction-adventure games like Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, respectively.

Therefore, in 1999, Fire Emblem 64DD was then cancelled: the system specifications weren't enough to handle a game, after years of having no news other than being announced in the Nintendo 64 magazine called 64 Dream. It is possible that it really could've been taken with Kaga to someplace for some other time. He left Intelligent Systems that same year and formed his own company, Tirnanog, possibly bringing some of his old assets along the way. His first new game, Emblem Saga, was meant to be a strategy role-playing game where the main character is a blue-haired Lord, and it takes place in the continent of Forceria where the Manakete tribe of dragon-humans once flourished. It would have several classes, such as Social Knight, Swordmaster and of course, Manaketes. Does this sound familiar? It had in fact, a premise made from dyed threads of the Archanean saga of the Fire Emblem franchise, much like the cancelled game. It was in fact, meant to take place at the same time as FE1. What was different about it from other Fire Emblem games was that it was to be released for the Sony PlayStation, very much like Squaresoft and Enix.

Eventually, in order to avoid copyright infringement lawsuits, Tirnanog and Enterbrain had to change various in-game names: the eventual title became Tear Ring Saga: Heroic Chronicles of Utna (Utna Eiyuu Senki), the Manaketes became the Emiyu due to Intelligent Systems holding a copyright over it and the continent of Forceria was now the continent of Lieberia, but the final deaths, the random number generation and a world map, much like Gaiden's has stayed on. Now, the Lord character's brown-haired--like Leaf of Lenster. Even Mayumi Hirota from Dirty Pair and Thracia 776 was brought on to do character art. However, despite the fact that these name changes had occurred to cover up a game once meant to be developed just for their console, Nintendo pushed through with their own Fire Emblem installment possibly made from other portions of FE64DD, Fire Emblem: The Maiden of Darkness, the subtitle of which eventually became the Binding Blade. Released for the Game Boy Advance in 2002, Nintendo sued Enterbrain the year before as it had apparently violated the Unfair Competition Law amongst Japanese corporate legislature.

Because of this, one could say that like many of the 64DD projects ported over to other consoles, like how Enix's DQVII was meant for the failed disc drive but released on the PlayStation, Tear Ring Saga may have been the result of this--hard work gone to waste due to it not meeting your expectations, but going back to it anew, on a newer, better medium helped it become its own beast and endure the test of time. It could've been great on the 64DD, but changes forced it to be released on the PlayStation due to how it couldn't match up with a platform that was incapable of accommodating such an awesome game, which led to lawsuits, conflicts and eventually, separation from companies. However, this also led to the fact that Nintendo had to use other platforms in order to accommodate other publishers as well: profiteering off of developers just didn't do justice, which led to a better medium of play and a publisher fairer in practice. The Game Boy Advance later became another haven for Squaresoft and other manufacturers of RPG's and it was Fire Emblem's new residence for a time. Who knows? Maybe more theories will develop.

For example, I give you these:

The Diverging Branch in Development Theory:

Fire Emblem: The Maiden of Darkness and Emblem Saga were once FE64DD, yet Shouzou Kaga's goals and Nintendo's limitations caused the two parties to diverge.

The Lost and Kidnapped Sheep Theory:

All assets of FE64DD were reused in Emblem Saga without Nintendo's consent, leading to several name changes despite an impending lawsuit.

The Competition to Unfair Competition Theory:

Fire Emblem: The Maiden of Darkness was developed directly to compete with Tear Ring Saga as gamers really needed a new Fire Emblem installment after a break from newer SRPG's.

Edited May 20, 2012 by VulneqSVB/=

[Otherarrow]

I've heard and come up with multiple theories as to what became of FE64, but I think the most likely is that the game itself was scrapped and will never see the light of day, but some of the ideas behind it were later reused in TearRing Saga and/or Maiden of Darkness (which probably got further from the original FE64 when it became Sword of Seals?)

From what I heard, one of the ideas for FE64 was a focus on Camus and Michalis, but I am not sure how that would have worked out, as, at least IMO, both of their stories were pretty much told. (Maybe a POV switch of the first three games from Camus's perspective?) But that concept doesn't look much like either TRS or FE6.

[General Banzai]

The root problem is, nobody exactly knows why Kaga left in the first place.

[Celice]

If any resources were taken, they weren't taken but readapted and remade. TearRing Saga is too traditional to be a split of the direction FE64 was going.

Also, your poll is defunct. Though you allow us to say now, we're forced to say yes by selecting one of the second options

(I would've rather seen Nintendo Wars develop into a new series than Fire Emblem into the Saga games :x )

[VincentASM]

FE64 confuses the heck out of me, mostly because there is like literally no information about it. However, what confuses me most is why did Miyamoto apparently confirm FE64's existance before it was officially announced? Or was FE64 announced earlier than I thought?

As such, I have no idea what side to take.

The root problem is, nobody exactly knows why Kaga left in the first place.

The closest thing I can find is that (as far as I could read) Kaga explicitly expressed interest in developing for the PS1 on IS's old message board, when questioned by a fan. That must have been a pretty bold thing to admit, when you're a figurehead of a Nintendo 2nd party developer.

If I have time I should try and dig out the post so somebody else could translate it.

[Momo]

Considering we know absolutely nothing about FE64, I just kind of assumed there was no real development and was more like a placeholder. "We plan on making a Fire Emblem game, so we'll just tell people it exists". Perhaps Kaga had a bunch of ideas that found their way in Tear Ring Saga, but as far as stealing stuff from FE64? I really doubt it.

[VulneqSVB/=]

If any resources were taken, they weren't taken but readapted and remade. TearRing Saga is too traditional to be a split of the direction FE64 was going.

Also, your poll is defunct. Though you allow us to say now, we're forced to say yes by selecting one of the second options

(I would've rather seen Nintendo Wars develop into a new series than Fire Emblem into the Saga games :x )

Don't worry, the poll is dead.

And yeah, that sounds much, much more likely than being directly taken from FE64.

[Agile Tit-Tyrant]

The root problem is, nobody exactly knows why Kaga left in the first place.

I'm just throwing this out there but I read somewhere that Kaga wanted Thracia 776 to become the FE standard and wanted to keep developing games just like it. But others wanted to change the formula and he didn't like it so he left.

But the whole "he left cuz he wanted playstation" is a better logical theory. :P

[Othin]

"He wanted Playstation" isn't an explanation. Why he wanted Playstation is an explanation.

[VulneqSVB/=]

"He wanted Playstation" isn't an explanation. Why he wanted Playstation is an explanation.

Well, that's what my portion about the controversial Squeenix transferring was meant to answer. XD

[Othin]

Well, that's what my portion about the controversial Squeenix transferring was meant to answer. XD

Was this in your first post?

[Celice]

FE64 confuses the heck out of me, mostly because there is like literally no information about it. However, what confuses me most is why did Miyamoto apparently confirm FE64's existance before it was officially announced? Or was FE64 announced earlier than I thought?

Though Hudson was ruining making its sister franchise's debut on the N64, it was along in development. I'd assume Fire Emblem was along in development as well, but got canned because that type of game didn't seem necessary. The N64 was a system that really shafted games into specific corners, rather than offering all sorts of different kinds, so an executive decision to cancel these two games are possible; if they also were relying on the more gimmicky N6DD, that's another problem that put many games out of commission.

EDIT:

Here is some actual research on the game.

Fire Emblem is known to most Nintendo fans after the release of Super Smash Bros. Melee. Before that, lots of people didn’t know about the characters from the game or from where they came from. Of course they were from a Nintendo game, but which one? Myself, I believed that they were anime characters (how should I’ve known? I was only 7 by then) … but soon we have figured out the truth, a-ha! So they are from a strategy game called Fire Emblem! How silly for us not to know that! Mmh, what i was saying? Oh right, I’m hungry. Me too, let’s get something to eat.

Eherm… I should stop with the nonsense… anyway, Fire Emblem 64 was supposed to be released on the 64DD, but no screenshots were ever released. In fact, almost no information came out before it got cancelled. But hey, I am not writing about this just for the sake of it, I got some other information. No, really.

Miyamoto said in an interview about the 64DD software that they were gonna produce Fire Emblem 64 after they were done with Super Mario RPG 2, both which were made by Intelligent Systems. This info was written on IGN on 29th July 1997, taken from a japanese N64 magazine. Miyamoto said that Fire Emblem 64 would have come out “the later half of next year” meaning somewhere around autumn 1998, or maybe around winter 1999, just because we know that Nintendo loves to delay games. Of course, we must remember that Nintendo delayed the 64DD itself to December 1 1999, but we don’t know if this affected Super Mario RPG 2′s development. Now let’s say it did, maybe ’round the middle of 2000.

What more can i say? As with Earthbound 64 / Mother 3, the game wasn’t REALLY cancelled. Maybe. In early screenshots of Fire Emblem: Fuuin no Tsurugi for the GBA, there seems to be some changes in the graphics and some characters were unused. Also, Fire Emblem 64′s original title “Maiden in the Darkness” is a title given to a character in Fuuin no Tsurugi, and speculation has begun: the storyline of FE64 could have been transferred to the GBA version of the game.

(from contributors at the Unseen forum, who, you know, actually find information instead of making it up.

Edited May 20, 2012 by Celice

[VincentASM]

All of that seems to fit with what I've researched on the game.

However, one major issue I noticed is that, as far as I remember, FE64 never had a subtitle. "Maiden of Darkness" was only ever FE6's subtitle. I think people jumped to that conclusion or misread information when FE6 was announced straight after FE64's cancellation.

[Celice]

That's likely too. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find many Japanese sites which are interested in unused, beta, and prototypical information on games. The best I found was a site called Nulog, but that goes over a bit of everything in really petite detail...

[General Banzai]

I'm just throwing this out there but I read somewhere that Kaga wanted Thracia 776 to become the FE standard and wanted to keep developing games just like it. But others wanted to change the formula and he didn't like it so he left.

From what I've gathered looking at dev notes and whatnot, as well as looking at the trajectory that the FE series eventually did take pre- and post-Kaga, this theory seems really the most accurate one. Kaga seemed interested in pushing the gameplay and technical elements of the Fire Emblem series to their limits, a direction which we see him follow through in an almost steadily-increased pattern in the line of games spanning from FE4 to Berwick Saga, with BS being far beyond what we are seeing in FE even now, some 7 years later on consoles a generation advanced.

My idea is that the Nintendo execs believed Kaga's direction would alienate all but the most dedicated fans and also increase production costs. Their fears were perhaps confirmed by the markedly poor sales of Thracia, although of course there is the other factor of "being released for an outdated console" that added to that problem. Combine that with the entire Disk Drive fiasco and the widespread notion amongst game developers that the PS1 had technical capabilities which outstripped those of the N64 by a significant margin. Kaga believes that working on the Playstation will not only give him the technical support that he desires, but also will receive the market and internal financial support as the PS1 quickly sets itself up as a console for big-name, high-budget, "hardcore" RPGs with its major killer app, FFVII.

In summary, Nintendo wants to open Fire Emblem up to a wider audience, which we see them do in FE6 with a severe simplification of gameplay elements in comparison to Thracia as well as an incredibly straight-forward plot (compared to the convoluted political mess that is Jugdral Saga) and a cutesy, cartoony, more approachable art style. Kaga wants just the opposite, but he no longer is receiving support/fighting opposition from Nintendo. Many Nintendo familiars are jumping ship at this time (for more or less similar reasons), and Kaga is just another guy to board the lifeboat.

What I find particularly interesting, however, is that while FE6 was an immediately backpedal from Thracia, the series once again moves in a direction towards a Kagaesque "hardcore" Fire Emblem. First we see the re-introduction of more complex and deep plotting (with the addition of Maeda as head scenario writer and his plot trajectory which I have already detailed at length elsewhere), and soon by the time we have reached the Radiance Saga we see the re-introduction of many Jugdral gameplay elements.

Of course Radiance Saga had fairly lackluster sales, so I suspect that now with Awakening we are seeing a similar sort of "casual retread" that we saw in the transition from Thracia to FE6, only this time in a somewhat different way. For instance, we see elements like Casual Mode added in to the game, while harder difficulties are perhaps the most difficult modes of play in the entire series by a significant margin. We're also seeing a more "mainstream" anime style in the game, which while perhaps not "childish" like FE6 was, is clearly meant to play to a broader audience.

Perhaps with Awakening we're seeing an attempted split push, attempting on one hand to reel in casuals with easy modes among the easiest in the series and a more mainstream art style, while at the same time revitalizing the base with modes of obscene difficulty and elements which can only be described as blatant fanservice. The addition of "Marth" targets both groups at once.

[VulneqSVB/=]

Was this in your first post?

Ehh, it lacked cohesion. XD

The given reasons for the jump from cartridges to CD's were meant to apply to Kaga as well.