Fire Emblem Wii U

[Knight]

This may be a little premature (since we're still waiting for Awakening), but I think it's appropriate since the Wii U's recent release. What do you want to see on Nintendo's new, HD console? How do you think the Wii U's features can improve Fire Emblem? This can be any of the obvious features like the use of two screens, switching the game over to the game pad, online capabilities, HD graphics, etc. or some of the less obvious things, like the camera, gyroscope, Miiverse, or use of Wiimotes and Gamepad. What features from past games should return? What features should be axed? And what features do you think would improve the FE experience? There is so much possibility with this new console, it would be impossible to explain them in one sitting.

I'll start with one thing I want to see. One thing that caught my attention about the Wii U is leaving comments on Miiverse, specifically that when you game over, you can see other peoples' comments who've failed at the same spot. To expand on this, I think that if you fail a chapter, you can leave a comment on the mistake you made, or if you complete the chapter, you can leave a comment to help people who are stuck. For example: "Beware of reinforcements to the south on turn 8," or "Seraph Robe in the left chest." If you don't want any hints or help, you can turn the option off. This would help beginner players, hard mode players, or people who just generally suck at Fire Emblem.

So, what else do you think that could bring Fire Emblem to it's HD gloriousness?

[Komeiji Koishi]

I'd like to see a fleshed out multi player mode, something like in FE11, but better. Hell, a co-op campaign/story mode would be awesome.

[Momo]

FE Co-op might be kinda weird, but if they actually tried to make it good, I could totally see it working. Even if they fucked it up, it would still be incredibly fun to murder your friends' units.

[Emperor Hardin]

I imagine Multiplayer would best work with different gameplay mechanics. Like maybe each player controlling generic units with an objective.

[Ace Tactician]

I'd like to see a fleshed out multi player mode, something like in FE11, but better. Hell, a co-op campaign/story mode would be awesome.

I'll second the co-op story mode, having two players team up to progress through the main story would come in handy, especially on hard and lunatic difficulties. That way, you'll have someone to watch your units backs if you make a mistake like, putting your flyers in range of archers or wind magic users, the second player could move and take out the archers or wind magic users, saving your flyers from getting OHKO'd. What an awesome idea!

[Hawk King]

As long as it is better than the mess that is Radiant Dawn, I will be happy.

I want real support conversations back. Only 2 tiers, none of that 3rd tier stuff. Stick to no more than two groups, and keep it balanced. RDs group switching destroyed its gameplay balance. No Fionas this time around. "Est"s are fine, characters who are made useless from indoors, ledges, and rivers are unacceptable.

A return to Magvel might be nice...

[Melonhead]

Multiplayer could be fun. I just don't see how they could make it work very well, You would have to use generic units I guess. As for campaign co-op, I'd support that. Making fire emblem less of a single player game would be hard, but rewarding.

[Model Emu]

I think multiplayer in a traditional Fire Emblem campaign would be awkward, but in a specially designed one where two players control allied forces could work if it's balanced correctly.

[BlueLore]

What I would like is if you could control your units via the touchscreen(would also be cool if they are displayed with sprites on it,I think sprites have always something nostalgic)

Elements I would like in the next game:

-There are ways to grind your characters after the story(gives one the possibility to try out everyone after the story)

-Every class should have unique abilities

-the possibility of reclassing would also be nice if the above 2 would be in,again like in awakening,(yeah that game included many things I liked)because that way everyone would be unique in his/her own

-branched class trees would be also cool,but only if they are evened out.I dislike it if some classes have 2 unique promotions,while others do not even have one unique promotion.

-the return of light magic,I think they shouldn't exclude any kind of magic

-anima magic should be treated as a single magic type,but it would be okay if it would be still split between wind,fire and thunder

-Griffon knights should return,but they shouldn't use axe onlys.

-Soldiiers should return as playable units

[Knight]

What I would like is if you could control your units via the touchscreen(would also be cool if they are displayed with sprites on it,I think sprites have always something nostalgic)

Elements I would like in the next game:

-There are ways to grind your characters after the story(gives one the possibility to try out everyone after the story)

-Every class should have unique abilities

-the possibility of reclassing would also be nice if the above 2 would be in,again like in awakening,(yeah that game included many things I liked)because that way everyone would be unique in his/her own

-branched class trees would be also cool,but only if they are evened out.I dislike it if some classes have 2 unique promotions,while others do not even have one unique promotion.

-the return of light magic,I think they shouldn't exclude any kind of magic

-anima magic should be treated as a single magic type,but it would be okay if it would be still split between wind,fire and thunder

-Griffon knights should return,but they shouldn't use axe onlys.

-Soldiiers should return as playable units

I agree with you, soldiers should return, perhaps as a class that specializes at speed and defence. I think the magic triangle should return, but like it was in GBA, and give more variety to spells like Awakening, but add ice and possibly water spells as well. The only thing that disappoints me about Awakening is the lack of Bishops, a class that has been in every other FE, I hope they return. And if it's not too much to ask, more options for MU, specifically accessories like hats and eyepatches, (need spotpass Haar and Joshua).

[Aura Of Twilight]

Hmm...I don't know if it'd be possible, but it would cool if IS made the next game entirely about what took place during the Scouring in Elibe. You know, a going into the past kind of thing.

[Anacybele]

Oh, I think an FE on the Wii U would be absolutely amazing. IS totally needs to make some FE games for it! Not just one, at least a few!

As long as it is better than the mess that is Radiant Dawn, I will be happy.

I want real support conversations back. Only 2 tiers, none of that 3rd tier stuff. Stick to no more than two groups, and keep it balanced. RDs group switching destroyed its gameplay balance. No Fionas this time around. "Est"s are fine, characters who are made useless from indoors, ledges, and rivers are unacceptable.

A return to Magvel might be nice...

I completely disagree. Third tiers need to come back, they were so awesome and had a lot of potential. Same with switching groups. RD just wasn't quite long enough to make full use of these features. The game doesn't necessarily need to add too many more chapters for this either, just more opportunities for units to get exp. And ledges are an amazing addition to strategy options. They made me want to use mages and archers more than before, especially archers since they can't attack directly anyway unless they use those shitty crossbows.

What SHOULD be cut, imo, are the pointless Shove skill (ANYONE can do this, and the skill isn't even removable or obtainable, so it might as well not exist. Shove can just be a regular option in a unit's menu like in PoR), the useless bronze weapons (seriously, why do we need something even weaker than an iron sword/lance/axe/bow?), the shitty crossbows (or just make them better), and the idea of having everyone able to support with everyone (unless better conversations are made).

[Knight]

Hmm...I don't know if it'd be possible, but it would cool if IS made the next game entirely about what took place during the Scouring in Elibe. You know, a going into the past kind of thing.

Yeah, I thought of that once, but it would get kind of boring having almost every enemy a dragon. I wouldn't mind a remake of FE 4, not in the style that Shadow Dragon was remade however, something that is modernized, but still classic. Magvel wouldn't be a bad place to see again, and please let me have a bonewalker or gargoyle in my team.

[Sasori]

I imagine Multiplayer would best work with different gameplay mechanics. Like maybe each player controlling generic units with an objective.

I agree with this. Otherwise multiplayer would just turn in a game of "who has grinded the most and uses the most overpowered units." Perhaps you could pick one or two units from your game as lord of your army, but I would't want more then that.

As for things I would like to see......uh I don't really know. Just the usual I guess.

Edited December 3, 2012 by Sasori

[Integrity]

I imagine Multiplayer would best work with different gameplay mechanics. Like maybe each player controlling generic units with an objective.

So, in essence, Fire Emblem: Advance Wars.

[deuxhero]

I'd like to see a setting that isn't some vague late Medieval/early Renaissance mishmash+magic that has somehow maintained the same tech level for a millennium despite tech being barely comparable between the early and late Medieval (aka: generic "fantasy" setting). Greek or Roman esqe setting or non-European setting would be cool.

why do we need something even weaker than an iron sword/lance/axe/bow?

Giving a bronze knife to Sothe let him weaken without risking killing things, and they could have (but as far as I remember, did not) use them to add a lower "floor" to enemy cannon fodder.

Yeah, they really under utilized that. Hell, you couldn't even use them for penny pintching all that much because 1: You get a ton of money as soon as you can buy things in part 1 2: The Dawn Brigade is lacking in power so the power loss hurts and a lot of the good ones have good crit rates.

I think making bronze weapons between iron and steel in power (I understand would be more accurate, bronze fell largely because of trade disruptions and some high quality swords of the era were made of bronze, but this is the series with silver weapons...), but unable to crit, could be interesting

edit: I think they were usable for boss abuse, but that's not really something to encourage...

Edited December 4, 2012 by deuxhero

[Topaz Light]

Actually I think having generic player units is a very bad idea, unless they're given as a form of mockerycompensation like in Shadow Dragon. Every unit having a name, a face and a personality is an important feature of Fire Emblem; while, yes, the developers do intend for you to let some allies die, they also aim to make those allies worth fighting to keep alive, for more than just their stats/inventory. Things like sending units on suicide missions should be a last-resort tactic you feel fairly conflicted about rather than something you shrug and do anyway because the unit in question is a bad match for the map you're on, for one reason or another, and who cares anyway because you can just replace them next chapter.

In short, you're supposed to actually care about your allied units; I think that's why even the generic replacements from the DS games all have their own names, as opposed to simply being called "Altea" or "Soldier".

Although, for multiplayer you should be able to choose whether you want to take part in a standard match or a "rental" one; the principles behind rental matches being similar to those used in Pokemon, so those who like the current system don't have to give it up, and those who dislike it have an alternative.

As for what I'd like to see, I think having an alternate campaign for a co-op mode would be neat; maybe if a second 3DS FE is made, it can have connectivity with the Wii U installment and the stories can tie in with each other. Player 1 would obviously be the blue army, while Player 2 can control a yellow army of partner units from his/her own game/special unit roster. Perhaps with both players playing from the console, they could draw from the same unit pool and swap units as needed. Minor thing, but "1P Phase" and "2P Phase" could show up instead of Player and Partner, although any CPU-controlled factions would still use the single-player phase banners. Alternatively, or perhaps additionally, they could have versus scenarios as well, with one player playing the blue units and one playing the red; maybe even four-player matches with blue, yellow, red, green and/or gray/purple factions each controlled by independant players. Players who couldn't find friends to play any/all of the other factions could have the option of playing with all unclaimed factions controlled by the computer. Give these scenarios storylines, preferably tying in with the main one(s), and they could be both the multiplayer mode and the challenge maps at once.

...So yes, it is my belief that Fire Emblem multiplayer has the potential to be awesome, they simply haven't yet put in the effort necessary for it to reach that great potential.

Moving on from that...

• Five different faction types, listed in order of turn... order: The player's own Blue units, the helpful partner Yellow units, the malicious enemy Red units, the friendly-yet-hapless Green units, and the independant, self-serving Gray/Purple units. Player Phase, Partner Phase, Enemy Phase, NPC Phase and Other Phase, respectively, in that order. Obviously both Blue and Red would appear on every map, but no more than two of the other three would be present at the same time, and the total number of units outside of the Blue and Red factions would be kept from getting too high. The new Gray/Purple faction would be used by things like bandits, thieves and monsters, whom your enemies probably wouldn't want on the battlefield any more than you would, and would also come into use for potential three-way clashes.
• Anyone of any faction who has a portrait can gain EXP and level up, whether they're recruitable or not. Also, these enemies may be able to promote themselves should the right item come into their hands, so take 'em out quick while they're weak!
• Return of multiple kinds of promotion items. Master Seals are Practical, But Boring. Also, this will hopefully encourage more varied unit use, as you can't use up all your promotions on the same kinds of classes.
  More complete DLC characters would be nice; having DLC characters come as complete, original characters, with supports, death quotes, endings and everything, as well as having their challenge maps accessable on the world map and valid targets for skirmishes and the like. Relegation of nostalgia-bonus characters to a SpotPass-type thing would be perfectly acceptable, but please copy their death quotes from their respective games instead of resorting to ellipse storms.
• A return of My Unit/Avatar is pretty much inevitable, so why not make skin tone a customizable trait and add to the number of options available for other traits as well? Editable colors could be selected from a pregenerated list of colors or fine-tuned using color value sliders, and you should be able to select your default facial expression (mostly just which one shows up on MU's status page, but it would also slightly affect how other characters percieve him/her) as well.
• Speaking of skirmishes, add bandit groups, rowdy mercenaries and/or rogue soldiers to the list of enemies that can show up, so you can still fight groups of human classes instead of monsters. ...Although, I do think the Corpse Soldiers use human classes, but adding bandits and defectors would add a bit more variety, regardless.
• Make a lot more use of different chapter objectives! It's been three games since varied objectives last showed themselves in any significant capacity, and I think they were a great idea and I can't fathom the logic behind removing them. (Laziness isn't logic)
• A main character who is female in a Marth/Ike-like role. That is to say, she is the main character, she stays the main character (Lyn, Micaiah) and you cannot opt out of her being the main character. (Eirika) Other options include a main lord who doesn't specialize in swords, and another main lord who isn't of any sort of high birth, explicitly, implicitly or secretly. Although, preferably the latter would be combined with one or both of the former traits, as we already have Ike. While this is somewhat less important, it'd be nice to have a hero who is very visually-distinct from the others; basically, no more blue-haired princes. At least not for a good while. We already have 6 of them. 7 if you count Ike, as despite not being a prince he follows the same design principles as the others do, for the most part.
• A return of FE7's multiple protagonists and [character]'s Story features, to add replay value and additional depth to the other heroes. Go all-out on it and make it such that in the event of a timeskip, each character has pre- and post- timeskip stories. The number of Lords should absolutely top out at three. In the event of the inclusion of these features, the main character described above should be the "Eliwood" of the game.
• A return of FE7's multiple Lords and Select a Main Character features. Flesh them out and make sure that each hero has a campaign that takes them from the beginning of their involvement (including leading up to their joining the party in other characters' campaigns) through to the end of the story. Three heroes tops.
• Bring back Anima>Light>Dark please. Wind-Fire-Thunder can stay within Anima if it wants; I don't care. Basically, just use the Radiant Dawn magic setup, but with Anima preferably having just one weapon level instead of three. Also, no crossbows ever for any reason ever, forever. Unless they're counted as regular bows and anything that can use them can also use regular bows. Also knives returning would be fine, but at least give Thieves swords or something on promotion. No weapon types should go without their own weapon levels.
• Keep the simultaneous Strength and Magic stats, not like those were going anywhere anytime soon. Also, keep the physical and magical weapon types on the same screen, and have a few classes that can use at least one from each.
• If it's a prequel, make that fact a big revelation in the plot, preferably such that it not only makes the game cooler, but does the same for the game it's a prequel to.
• Keep branching promotions, and implement a hybrid of FEDS and FE13 reclassing; class options determined based on character, like FE13, but make the actual mechanic of it work like FEDS, so it's not quite so abusable. This should allow more customization of characters without breaking character, and the reclassing should make it easier (but by no means guaranteed) for players to make their parties more balanced if they're running low on units. Maybe make the branching promotions, or even secret promotions, accessible based on what promotion item you use on the character? Not all class-item combinations would be compatible, though. Master Seals would just yield the "default" promotion, or perhaps bring up a menu of all or most of the promotions available for that class, and you can choose which one you'd like. It wouldn't tell you the items ordinarily used to promote to those classes, though.
• Keep Casual mode, for the series newbies who are scared away by permadeath.
• Make tutorials optional no matter what; not everyone needs to be taught how to play Fire Emblem when they buy a new title. Also, make them available on both Easy and Normal modes, but not Hard and above, for obvious reasons. Perhaps implement a "Beginner" mode, which starts out Easy but eases the player into Normal as it goes on, so new players can start off the game at an easier difficulty without having themselves underchallenged after learning the ropes. It wouldn't at all be a stretch to have this instead of an Easy mode.
• Get Normal mode right in that sweet spot where it's hard enough to be exciting, but not so hard as to be frustrating. Then again, this "sweet spot" varies for every player... Basically, make it challenging without making it frustrating.
• No more difficulty name change shenanigans! Like in Radiant Dawn... having Normal as Easy, Hard as Normal and Maniac as Hard is tricky for players used to Normal mode being a much less frustrating selection.
• Allow the player to impact the story in a significant way, preferably through gameplay rather than menu selections, but those work too, I guess. For instance, no more event deaths of friendly characters when your merry band is nearby with the power to stop it; let the player manouver their units to try to save their endangered buddies, and if you succeed, you succeed, and the game recognizes it and perhaps even rewards you for it, in addition to adjusting the story accordingly. This would also up the tension and emotional investment by placing those characters' lives in your hands. ...Put saving them into Nintendo Hard/The Dev Team Thinks of Everything territory, though; it shouldn't be something you can do without trying to do it, and even if you are trying it should still be quite hard, and every indication up to the actual saving of the NPCs should indicate that you cannot, in fact, save them. Except that you can. This list entry brought to you by the tragic demises (and glitchy results of the prevention thereof) of Cuan and Ethlin.
• If it's possible, make a joke ending for killing an important boss way before you should, or at least a fully-coded alternate outcome. It's way more fun than the game glitching up, giving you a Game Over, nothing happening or just making it outright impossible.
• Have a GBAFE-style class list, where the classes don't overlap so much as to make certain ones useless, but there's enough variety to make each class more or less worth using. Have Wyvern Riders using Axes while Pegasus Knights use Lances, and make Soldiers playable a la Tellius. For that matter, do away with enemy-exclusive classes as a thing, except for super-situational ones (Fleets) and character-specific ones, (Dark Druid, Black Knight, etc.) and accomplish this by making members of classes like Soldiers and Brigands recruitable, not by removing those classes. If monsters are present, veer them away from "demons" towards "fantastical fauna", and maybe make a Tamer skill that, if used to "kill" a monster, (in a mechanic similar to Capture battles) would convert that monster to a Partner unit who could be dealt Directions by the tamer for the remainder of the chapter. Also, no more "Queen Crimea"-type class names. Those are clunky and look terribly out-of-place next to the other classes. Make sure there's at least class per weapon type in the first tier.
• Archers and map ballistae over Ballisticians.
• Have at least one out of arenas, skirmishes and bonus experience, so underleveled/Est characters aren't completely out of luck.
• Have some characters who are unique within their class in moderately significant ways, like a Bishop with Anima magic, a Pirate who can Steal, or maybe a character with a secret promotion option only they can access. But don't have anyone losing any abilities after promotion!
• Have plenty of variety in terms of how you recruit characters. Of course, the classic, "Talk to CPU Unit", "Visit Village" and "Join at Start of Chapter" methods are bound to return, but try adding some new ones here and there to shuffle things up.
• If a chubby character is included, have them actually be taken seriously as a character instead of being mostly a side/joke character, like Brom and Meg.
• Put in lots of little secrets and easter eggs, and pay attention to the details! If the Lord(s) can reclass, make their Prf weapon usable if they are able to use the weapon type, not only if they're in their custom class.

Edited December 4, 2012 by Starlight36

[BrightBow]

Personally I think they really need to take out My Unit.

Sure, customizing a unit is nice and all but it just carries too many downsides with it.

His inclusion means that their is less time for the actual developed characters and the time they do have is spend merely talking to this entirely generic and bland person. I don't know about you guys, but I would rather see Jill develop by talking to Mist and Ike then to Chris.

Now in the FE7 approach, the dialogue was essentially written without Mark at all. Then one of the Lords would turn their heads sideways and say something along the lines of "Right, Mark?". It never felt like your Avatar was there. It was so forced.

And just as a bonus, the fact that they tilted their head destroyed the illusion that the characters at the screen were somehow talking to each other despite them not even looking towards each other.

And in FE12, Chris made the characters a lot less authentic.

I mean, how much sense does it make to turn a fresh recruit into a Royal Guard? I hope I don't need to elaborate on this, since Katarina's already demonstrated wonderfully why this is such a bad idea.

But the position that the writers wanted her to be in, required that characters with supposed reasonable intelligence acted like complete morons.

And the fact that everyone talks to her all the time is also really awkward, since it forces them to share their most intimate thoughts with a complete stranger. Again, real people don't act like this.

Characters need to be believable but thanks to Chris, they acted very unbelievable.

Edited December 4, 2012 by BrightBow

[Ike-Mike]

Have it not be a vanity project.

[Anouleth]

Giant FE4 style maps.

[Byte2222]

Oh, I think an FE on the Wii U would be absolutely amazing. IS totally needs to make some FE games for it! Not just one, at least a few!

I completely disagree. Third tiers need to come back, they were so awesome and had a lot of potential. Same with switching groups. RD just wasn't quite long enough to make full use of these features. The game doesn't necessarily need to add too many more chapters for this either, just more opportunities for units to get exp. And ledges are an amazing addition to strategy options. They made me want to use mages and archers more than before, especially archers since they can't attack directly anyway unless they use those shitty crossbows.

What SHOULD be cut, imo, are the pointless Shove skill (ANYONE can do this, and the skill isn't even removable or obtainable, so it might as well not exist. Shove can just be a regular option in a unit's menu like in PoR), the useless bronze weapons (seriously, why do we need something even weaker than an iron sword/lance/axe/bow?), the shitty crossbows (or just make them better), and the idea of having everyone able to support with everyone (unless better conversations are made).

Ok, a few things:

IS only tend to make 1 or 2 FEs per console and I imagine developing for the Wii U will require enough effort that we'll see at most 2 games for it.

I disagree with your disagreement (mostly). A lot of the features of the third tier were redundant (e.g. mastery skills, extra weapons) and with such a large exp and stat gap between your top and bottom units it's hard to experiment. Having more than 2 groups gives too broad a focus and inhibits character and plot development, not to mention that the game needs more units to fill the teams and RD already has such a huge roster you're never allowed access to the whole thing. RD was plenty long enough, I play slowly but I often hit the playtime cap (100 hours, I think).

I do, however, like the tactical value of elevation/ledges but it's difficult to properly integrate into the map design seeing how it ruins mobility (which is also kinda the point). I also agree that IS should give up on crossbows, there's no good way to integrate them into both gameplay and the world (e.g. "it's a different kind of bow so why is it exactly the same kind of weapon? That's kinda pointless")

What I'd love to see in Fire Emblem's future is a remake of Gaiden, it's a game begging for a remake.

[BlueLore]

Actually I think having generic player units is a very bad idea, unless they're given as a form of mockerycompensation like in Shadow Dragon. Every unit having a name, a face and a personality is an important feature of Fire Emblem; while, yes, the developers do intend for you to let some allies die, they also aim to make those allies worth fighting to keep alive, for more than just their stats/inventory. Things like sending units on suicide missions should be a last-resort tactic you feel fairly conflicted about rather than something you shrug and do anyway because the unit in question is a bad match for the map you're on, for one reason or another, and who cares anyway because you can just replace them next chapter.

In short, you're supposed to actually care about your allied units; I think that's why even the generic replacements from the DS games all have their own names, as opposed to simply being called "Altea" or "Soldier".

Although, for multiplayer you should be able to choose whether you want to take part in a standard match or a "rental" one; the principles behind rental matches being similar to those used in Pokemon, so those who like the current system don't have to give it up, and those who dislike it have an alternative.

Yeah I think being able to choose between your own units and generic units in mutliplayer would be a good idea,but for single player it would kinda ruin the game.

As for what I'd like to see, I think having an alternate campaign for a co-op mode would be neat; maybe if a second 3DS FE is made, it can have connectivity with the Wii U installment and the stories can tie in with each other. Player 1 would obviously be the blue army, while Player 2 can control a yellow army of partner units from his/her own game/special unit roster. Perhaps with both players playing from the console, they could draw from the same unit pool and swap units as needed. Minor thing, but "1P Phase" and "2P Phase" could show up instead of Player and Partner, although any CPU-controlled factions would still use the single-player phase banners. Alternatively, or perhaps additionally, they could have versus scenarios as well, with one player playing the blue units and one playing the red; maybe even four-player matches with blue, yellow, red, green and/or gray/purple factions each controlled by independant players. Players who couldn't find friends to play any/all of the other factions could have the option of playing with all unclaimed factions controlled by the computer. Give these scenarios storylines, preferably tying in with the main one(s), and they could be both the multiplayer mode and the challenge maps at once.

...So yes, it is my belief that Fire Emblem multiplayer has the potential to be awesome, they simply haven't yet put in the effort necessary for it to reach that great potential.

A co-op mode sounds kinda useless.I mean where would be the big difference between the 1p and 2p turns?Would be simply like a split group with individual turns.

Moving on from that...

• Five different faction types, listed in order of turn... order: The player's own Blue units, the helpful partner Yellow units, the malicious enemy Red units, the friendly-yet-hapless Green units, and the independant, self-serving Gray/Purple units. Player Phase, Partner Phase, Enemy Phase, NPC Phase and Other Phase, respectively, in that order. Obviously both Blue and Red would appear on every map, but no more than two of the other three would be present at the same time, and the total number of units outside of the Blue and Red factions would be kept from getting too high. The new Gray/Purple faction would be used by things like bandits, thieves and monsters, whom your enemies probably wouldn't want on the battlefield any more than you would, and would also come into use for potential three-way clashes.

I like the idea.I always wondered,why the enemy empire was allied with bandits

• Have some characters who are unique within their class in moderately significant ways, like a Bishop with Anima magic, a Pirate who can Steal, or maybe a character with a secret promotion option only they can access. But don't have anyone losing any abilities after promotion!

Well the skill system of fire emblem 3ds make this more or less possible.

With everyone having a unique combination of classes,results in everyone having a unique set of avaliable skill combination(of course this isn't completely the case in awakening since children usually have access to all the classes of their parents)

• Have plenty of variety in terms of how you recruit characters. Of course, the classic, "Talk to CPU Unit", "Visit Village" and "Join at Start of Chapter" methods are bound to return, but try adding some new ones here and there to shuffle things up.

.

Sounds cool and they kind of did this already in PoR/RD(Jill,Stefan,Oliver,Sephiran)

However I would prefer it if they don't include characters who are only avaliable through complicated ways,like stefan or sephiran(I mean seriously,who would get those characters without help or huge amount of luck)

[Agro]

I mean, how much sense does it make to turn a fresh recruit into a Royal Guard? I hope I don't need to elaborate on this, since Katarina's already demonstrated wonderfully why this is such a bad idea.

But the position that the writers wanted her to be in, required that characters with supposed reasonable intelligence acted like complete morons.

You know that FE12 deliberately makes Marth out to be an idiot, right?

[Rehab]

Personally I think they really need to take out My Unit.

Sure, customizing a unit is nice and all but it just carries too many downsides with it.

His inclusion means that their is less time for the actual developed characters and the time they do have is spend merely talking to this entirely generic and bland person. I don't know about you guys, but I would rather see Jill develop by talking to Mist and Ike then to Chris.

Now in the FE7 approach, the dialogue was essentially written without Mark at all. Then one of the Lords would turn their heads sideways and say something along the lines of "Right, Mark?". It never felt like your Avatar was there. It was so forced.

And just as a bonus, the fact that they tilted their head destroyed the illusion that the characters at the screen were somehow talking to each other despite them not even looking towards each other.

And in FE12, Chris made the characters a lot less authentic.

I mean, how much sense does it make to turn a fresh recruit into a Royal Guard? I hope I don't need to elaborate on this, since Katarina's already demonstrated wonderfully why this is such a bad idea.

But the position that the writers wanted her to be in, required that characters with supposed reasonable intelligence acted like complete morons.

And the fact that everyone talks to her all the time is also really awkward, since it forces them to share their most intimate thoughts with a complete stranger. Again, real people don't act like this.

Characters need to be believable but thanks to Chris, they acted very unbelievable.

[spoiler=woooooords]There are games out there that successfully have a customizable main character who can actually be given personality, has a speaking role (if not fully voiced lines), and is actually allowed to develop through extensive player choice, though, it's just that all happens to be a lot harder to do well than to follow the approach most of the Fire Emblem series and other JRPGs take to tell their stories.

I don't think it's absolutely necessary for Fire Emblem as a series to have the equivalent of an RP character, but I don't see why anybody would spurn a version of it done well, like where every path you could take a customizable character would be well-written enough to be regarded as a well-written FE game of its own. That is, assuming all other things are equal, and it wouldn't be drawing resources away from other essential areas of the game. What I do think the series would need to learn before trying it again, though, is that the point of having a customizable character is not to force the player to deal with a self-insert, so I'd certainly do away with any title resembling "My Unit," to start with. The plot can and should give them a proper Hero's Journey etc just like any other protagonist, but it has to avoid doing some of the things that you've mentioned them doing, which are indeed fatal pitfalls- if a character ingame doesn't treat this protagonist like they would any other character, there needs to be a better, definitely a better-explained reason than at best implying "they're the MU so they're obviously special."

I'll admit, though, that part of what makes the series interesting is having a large cast of playable characters that are (mostly) presented as living, mortal people, and are hopefully developed enough to be shown as such. To make a game that develops every character you can recruit well (when the number of characters you can get is around the average number the we would in a Fire Emblem game), and that at the same time does a good job giving the player opportunities to develop/define their protagonist as an RP character, is admittedly a tall fucking order. I imagine that even done well, it would come at the "cost" of the protagonist being more developed than the other characters, but that's not too uncommon or even undesirable necessarily. Hopefully, being done well would mean character development doesn't become a zero-sum game, such that the rest of the cast can still be well-developed, but the protagonist just happens to be more developed, by the player having helped craft their story.

On second thought, I do at least understand why somebody might prefer that they skip the customizable protagonist business in the interests of treating the cast more equally and of time, but if that ideal (and of course at this point totally hypothetical) Fire Emblem did have a customizable protagonist written as well as some have done it, built up as a core part of a good role-playing experience? Man, that game would be..

I'd want to play that game.

Other stuff I'd like to see some time in a new series entry, on hardware that could presumably handle it:

- +1 for big maps sounding nice, if hopefully with a better approach to traversing them than Siglud's Jihad took. If not a way to get around faster (which I would REALLY be hoping for in this case), having at least something to keep me on my toes while I travel from point to point, like periodic reinforcements or events or something would be nice. Maybe a way to get the army to form up that's actually good enough to be distinctly beneficial and fun to use, some form of (conditional) fast travel, something comparable to the battle speed adjustment in Total War (or at least Shogun 2) where I'd tell a unit to go a certain tile way across the map and speed up turn ending, tough to think of a revolutionary answer that works well on the spot but something'd be nice.

+ On that note, I actually like(d) roads in FE4, and I think a form of tile that sped up movement could make things like positioning ranged/weaker//healer etc units behind others more interesting, but I just plain have no idea off the top of my head how to execute it without horses getting a disproportionate advantage that they IIRC haven't generally needed before. At least not without throwing (possibly a lot) more variables in.

- Peeps have talked a lot before about how FE has kind of a warped sense of scale sometimes. Showing things happening on the scale of a massive battlefield, but usually only letting us play something more around the scale of a skirmish between gangs or scouting parties, or a commando team up against the guards of a single building, stuff like that. Part of the reason I'd like to see larger maps is indeed to see larger fights that make more sense, but again I have to admit that part of what makes the series special is how each of your units is their own person, and I can't imagine just making the game bigger would make the characterization any easier. On the other hand, part of what makes the series interesting is just how many characters, relatively speaking, are both developed (to an extent) and directly controllable, so I'm not exactly eager to go "just downsize the game to the point where the number of people you get is slightly larger than your average RPG cast, and stop telling us the game is way bigger that what we're actually playing."

I honestly don't have anything even close to an answer for that, just what-ifs. It'd be nice to see the scale of the game and play sorted out in a way that makes sense, though. As much sense as comfortably possible for strategy video games and fantasy, anyway.

Aaaaaand this post still looks like a fence of words, and I didn't even fill it <_> I think more differentiated roles between classes (soldiers/foot spears as anti-cavalry, warriors as chargers/line-breakers/capable of holding down an enemy to make them unable to attack somebody else, archers as capable of stopping someone in their tracks at range, thieves as capable of causing a distraction to avoid being noticed etc etc etc) and the story/characters being directly affected by a character dying would also be neat, but this thing's starting to creak under the weight and I'm about outta steam so I'll spare it

Edited December 7, 2012 by Rehab

[Comet]

Oh, I think an FE on the Wii U would be absolutely amazing. IS totally needs to make some FE games for it! Not just one, at least a few!

I completely disagree. Third tiers need to come back, they were so awesome and had a lot of potential. Same with switching groups. RD just wasn't quite long enough to make full use of these features. The game doesn't necessarily need to add too many more chapters for this either, just more opportunities for units to get exp. And ledges are an amazing addition to strategy options. They made me want to use mages and archers more than before, especially archers since they can't attack directly anyway unless they use those shitty crossbows.

What SHOULD be cut, imo, are the pointless Shove skill (ANYONE can do this, and the skill isn't even removable or obtainable, so it might as well not exist. Shove can just be a regular option in a unit's menu like in PoR), the useless bronze weapons (seriously, why do we need something even weaker than an iron sword/lance/axe/bow?), the shitty crossbows (or just make them better), and the idea of having everyone able to support with everyone (unless better conversations are made).

I agree on the bringing back the third tiers, except I would either take away the mastery skills or make them weaker like in PoR.