Wishful thinking: Fire Emblem 14

[Knight]

Let's say you were the developer for the next Fire Emblem game, with complete creative control over the project. Now let's throw logic and realism out the window and you can do whatever you want to the next Fire Emblem, what would you do? Remake, sequel. something new? Classes, gameplay elements, plot, you have the power. How would you create your own Fire Emblem game?

[Gone2Ground]

More customized supports, pairings for EVERYONE (Make everyone a Robin who can marry anyone) - if logic interjects cut out Gen2 to make room - and friendship pairings with everyone not married. Branching storyline where you have to choose which mission to take (Getting invaded - do you hold the line or counterattack? Counterattack: You are in enemy territory while your country is getting pillaged. Defend: You are slowly pushed back). Introduce bonuses for keeping troops in a formation (Four in a square = +2 DEF to all or something). Get rid of Pair Up or fix it somehow, is too broken. Return Astra to the good version.

Keep Second Seals

Make story more depressing because TRAGEDY

Find a way to make range-lock not suck

Set forwards an official timeline.

Explain how Dragons work once and for frigging all (Manaketes/Icedragons/earthdragons/Laguz are they related yes no please someone save my sanity?)

I'll probably think of more later.

[Liz]

as far as remakes, i would totally love to remake FE4 with all the awesome gameplay and options and such that was perfected with FE13. and actually bring back the ideas for that alleged third part of the game, where everyone from gen 1 is reunited with gen 2. although everyone here will probably be like NOOOOOOOOO that sucks

actually, thinking about it, thanks to that time gate junk we have, they could still have everyone from Gen 1 die like they're supposed to, and have the recruitable gen 1 characters come from an alternate past as a sort of opposite FE13. or maybe have them summonable somehow, just whisk them away from the past because they're needed in the future or something. but maybe that'll make the whole schtick stale? i dunno

Edited March 15, 2013 by Liz

[Anacybele]

I'd remake RD so it had better supports, more choices of paired endings IN ADDITION to the ones already there, and more battles so the availability of characters is more balanced. I'd also extend parts 1, 2, and 4. It would be a long game, but I think people would enjoy the effort put into the support conversations and development of the characters and story.

Oh, I'd also make my fic, Dawn of Darkness, into a game. But it would be have to be altered a bit to fit properly as a sequel to RD, since that's what it is.

[Topaz Light]

Hmm...

[spoiler=Warning! Wall of text incoming!]I'm not entirely sure what it would be in relation to the rest of the series. It would probably either be to another FE world as Awakening is to Archanea/Akaneia, or it would be completely new, in its own world. I'm leaning towards either long after the Elibe saga or starting a completely new saga.

The main lord would likely be a girl, and would probably vary from the traditional "Lord" class, in that she would wield another weapon type besides swords (maybe lances?). She would also likely not be of noble birth, either, in the vein of Ike, so hopefully this game's main character would be able to stand out from the rest of the series'.

I would return supports to FE6~9 style, with limited options per character, so I could focus on the most interesting character/character interactions. Basically a quality-over-quantity-type thing. Of course, there would be paired endings for almost, if not all, of the potential support pairs.

I would also reintroduce FETellius-styled Base conversations, so as to involve more characters in the happenings of the plot than just the main character and a few other important people.

Make the story deeper than Awakening's and very character-driven, with interesting and developed antagonists as well as protagonists.

I'm not really sure what to do about reclassing... Probably, since Gaiden/Sacred Stones/Awakening-style world map navigation wouldn't be a thing in my FE14, I would have it work like in Shadow Dragon/New Mystery, but the options available would vary by character like in Awakening. Of course, there may well not even be reclassing.

Skills would be far more character-based than class-based. Characters in general would be made such that they were quite distinct from each other, even within the same class. For example, the Red Cavalier and Green Cavalier would preform noticeably differently, giving you a broader selection of reasons to use (or not) either or both of them.

Bronze, Iron and Steel weapons, normal, El- and Arc- tomes, and Heal and Mend staves would be the only equips in infinite supply in the game. All other weapons, tomes and staves would be more precious, only appearing in limited quantities in certain shops and otherwise only obtainable from villages, treasure chests or defeated enemies. Weapons would generally have higher durability than in other games, though, (40 for Steel, 50 for Iron, 60 for Bronze, etc...) in order to avoid characters becoming unarmed due higher overall enemy quantity resulting from the following...

Instead of the World Map system, I would see about implementing an FE4-style huge map setup, with enemies placed such that there were minimal droughts of nothing but moving units. Before and after major battles, and during map transitions, there would be a bit of omniscient narration a la not-FE2-or-13's overworlds. These "major battles" would have varying objectives, whereas they would be accessed by "seizing" their locations (castle, village, temple, etc...) from the larger maps. Due to the huge maps, mounted units would be rarer, and enemy formations and weaponry would be set up such that simply sending your riders in to do all the work by themselves would be highly inadvisable most of the time.. This would be done to prevent the game from becoming too unbalanced in favor of mounted units.

Arenas would be present, but they would be rare, and likely only be fairly out-of-the-way in the larger maps and only in a few of the smaller ones.

Sidequests would be present in the form of optional "major battles" and optional objectives on the larger maps. Previous criteria would usually need to be met in order to play the sidequests, although sometimes, this may just mean sending some units out of their way to the area in which the sidequest would take place.

Bonus EXP would return, and would be available to distribute to units at the preparations menu. Also at the preparation menu would be an armory selling Bronze weapons and base-level tomes and staves.

The trinity of magic would return, Radiant Dawn-style, with the Dark beating Anima beating Light beating Dark, and the smaller Nature trinity within Anima.

Any "storyline deaths" playing out on the world map (like Quan and Ethlyn's in FE4) would be preventable, and the game and its story would adapt themselves if you did manage to save them- or, of course, if they just got ludicrously lucky and survived on their own.

At least one member of every class that wasn't unique to a specific nonrecruitable character (think Nergal's Dark Druid or Lyon's Necromancer) would be able to join the party.

There would be "A or B" routes that didn't wuss out and give you everything important from one route even in the other. (I'm looking at you, Sacred Stones) There may be some universally-recruitable characters who happen to join during the split, but there would definitely be characters and items that are mutually exclusive in a single playthrough. and I would put a pair of mutually-exclusive characters on each others' support lists just to be a dick

Forging would be a thing, but you would need to forge weapons at Armories and tomes and staves at Vendors. Oh yeah, and you'd be able to forge staves, too. You can increase their healing potency and maybe add a special property to the staff as well (like a temporary stat boost or something). This would be more costly than forging offensive gear, though. When forging, you would be able to choose to modify an existing weapon from the recipient's inventory, or start from scratch, in which case you choose one of the items stocked in the store to forge immediately before it goes into the customer's inventory. Choosing a weapon in limited supply to forge from scratch counts as buying one of that weapon from the store. Custom gear can once again be recolored, in addition to being renamed and having stats modified. Stat modification would work Awakening-style, with the coin function from Radiant Dawn implemented as well.

Radiant Dawn's terrain additions, like climeable ledges, would be present, along with the GBA games' destructible terrain elements and Path of Radiance's ability to attack doors instead of opening them. Some of the aforementioned climeable ledges would have ladders, vines or rocky footholds along them, allowing for units to climb them. Without good footholds, these ledges can only be climbed by units of certain classes and/or with certain skills. Fliers could obviously simply fly up. Horseback and heavily-armored units cannot climb ledges at all, and will need to take another path. Of course, having the high ground would give you the advantage in combat.

Mounting/dismounting would be present once again, with units needing to dismount for certain indoor battles (only required if the indoor battle involves very tight spaces; a palace with wide open halls would not require dismounting). Fliers fighting indoors would suffer reductions to their innate evasion bonuses. Specifically indoors, though; if they're fighting outdoors even in a primarily-indoor map (like, they engage an enemy in a small courtyard or something) they would still receive full flier evasion bonuses.

There might be very rare items and/or events that allow units to wield an additional weapon type. These would be few and far between, totally to maybe three or four in the entire game. They would be difficult to unlock, and a few may be restricted to only giving certain weapon types to certain characters.

Characters would have a lot more of their own events on the overworld; some easy to get, some tucked away in remote corners of the map, and anywhere and everywhere in between. These would likely take the place of event tiles and can have multiple effects, from free level-ups to free stat boosts to items and relationship boosts. There would also be certain villages and houses that would yield different rewards depending on who visited them, so there would be a lot to discover.

The preparations menu would be available at the beginning of each major battle, as well as the beginning of each larger map, allowing you to alter starting formation and inventories before jumping in to the adventure. Smaller-scale major battles require you to select a smaller number of units to bring, whereas the Select Units option is unavailable for the larger maps and everyone comes along automatically: it's not as though they really have anywhere else to be, after all.

There would be various events that would go on all over the larger maps, encouraging you to split the surviving members of your complete team into smaller squads and make use of everyone you've got to investigate what's going on. When a major battle commences, characters who are too far from the action (calculated as "cannot reach destination from current location in X turns or less, so a Cavalier could join from further away than a Knight, for example) cannot take part in that battle, but will rejoin your team once the map is cleared.

In Casual mode, you can make Radiant Dawn-style Battle Saves instead of Suspending, whereas in Classic mode, you'll have to either Suspend or make use of FEDS Save Points, map transitions and the preparations menu for your saving needs.

As what Gone2Ground said, an effort would be made to reduce the inferiority of range-locked units.

tl;dr: The Lord would be a girl, story would be deep and character-driven, gameplay would be a hybrid of Gaiden, Awakening and Genealogy with GBA and Tellius terrain elements. All non-character-specific classes would be recruitable. There would be branching routes, forging, GBA~GC-style supports and all sorts of secret stuff. Skills would be a thing and would be used to make units more distinct from each other. Reclassing would be a hybrid of FEDS and Awakening. Bow specialists wouldn't suck. ...Yup, I think that's trimmed down enough.

If you want to see all the juicy details, though, check out the contents of that delicious spoiler above.

EDIT: The text in the spoiler wants to be bold for some reason. I guess I'll let it win this round.

Edited March 15, 2013 by Starlight36

[Anacybele]

Sounds like the lord of my fic/game idea would be your kind of FE main character, Starlight. She's a woman not of noble birth and is a sword-wielding mercenary like Ike. She also has little respect for men in general and wants to prove that women can do just as great on their own as they do. She also doesn't like to be helped much in general. Over time though, she does find that there are plenty of men who don't belittle women and would actually respect them for their skills, as well as that people will need help sometimes, and it doesn't mean the person being helped is thought to be inferior in any way. When she does become a Lord, though, she starts growing into a leader. She also gains lances, but remains on foot. ^^

Edited March 15, 2013 by Anacybele

[Topaz Light]

Sounds like the lord of my fic/game idea would be your kind of FE main character, Starlight. She's a woman not of noble birth and is a sword-wielding mercenary like Ike. She also has little respect for men in general and wants to prove that women can do just as great on their own as they do. She also doesn't like to be helped much in general. Over time though, she does find that there are plenty of men who don't belittle women and would actually respect them for their skills, as well as that people will need help sometimes, and it doesn't mean the person being helped is thought to be inferior in any way. When she does become a Lord, though, she starts growing into a leader. She also gains lances, but remains on foot. ^^

Haha, well, she wouldn't really have anything against men, (at least not in particular) but she would certainly hold her own and be every bit as badass as the other FE heroes. And, she would weild lances as her main weapon, instead of being effectively a Chrom/Lucina clone. I suppose she's like Ephraim in that regard. My basic outline for the beginning bit of a plot has her as a new recruit/mid-low ranking member in some guard or local militia, who, after a few missions, is assigned to a small platoon. Her platoon ends up running into a rather urgent trouble (one that would entail them being unable to retrieve help without running out of time before the help arrived) that turns out to be larger and wider-reaching than the realize, and before they know it, they're far separated from their main group, with rumors of the main group's safety being less than reassuring. That simple mission that began as a simple attempt to do what they could in an urgent situation ends up wrapping them up in a grand plot threatening the entire continent.

By the way, this story would be something like a hybrid of Blazing Sword's and Path of Radiance's; starting out on a small scale, it turns into an all out war later on, but there would be many personal elements to the story as well; Ike's nemesis...ship... with the Black Knight, and Eliwood's search for his father, to name a few examples. I should hope that it would be a very intriguing, riveting, and adventurous story. Also, you may not have seen the last of the main group near the beginning of the game, so keep your eyes peeled for familiar faces!

Edited March 15, 2013 by Starlight36

[Bearemy]

A brand new game with the following:

Customizable color palletes for the Avatar's in-game model, and consistent color schemes with reclassing for other characters.

Same-sex romantic pairings for the Avatar, and perhaps for a few certain characters.

Tragic storyline for all sides, kind of like how RD handled characterizing most nations: clearly struggling but vigilant or something.

I dunno how another Gen 2 system would work in another game without repeating timey wimey hijinks or killing off Gen 1, though.

That's all that comes to mind, though.

[Topaz Light]

I dunno how another Gen 2 system would work in another game without repeating timey wimey hijinks or killing off Gen 1, though.

You could have some of Gen 1 join/stay with Gen 2, others could become preoccupied with something that prevents them from joining the fight directly (ruling a nation, fighting battles elsewhere, or maybe one or two of the 1st-gen girls are pregnant again or something?) while still others could be dead or even may have defected to the enemy side. A wide spread of 1st-gen character statuses in the 2nd-gen would certainly be an interesting idea.

Edited March 15, 2013 by Starlight36

[Baldrick]

You could make it a time skip, only not do the rocks fall, everyone dies bit. Make it two different conflicts (like how FE6 and FE7 would be in a single game) or if you want an overall plot, have part 1 end with a truce that lasts ~20 years and ends when part 2 begins.

[Aether911]

FULL SCALE WAR WITH HUNDRED OF UNITS AND 13 GENERATIONS

I often thought about it, and there is lot of things that I would want to see in this game. For the story that would be a 3 generations story, the first one being a huge civil war and succession crisis. You would play a prince of the mightiest Empire of the continent (cause empire are not all evil you know) who would try to secure the succession for his older brother (because yes, you're not the direct heir this time) and try to save his family of being wiped out by ambitious vassals. Gameplay-wise you would have a wold map, but you couldn't move on it, only chose a path or a go to a sidequest. Those would be separated chapters (and could consist on multiple chapters), or being integrated in a main game map. The maps of the game would be huge, not as huge as FE4's, for obious reasons (but who know, maybe some peoples enjoy moving their units for half an hour). Still you would have many "interest points", like forts, cities, temple and castles. For conquering a castle you would have to lay a siege. To do so, you have to defeat the unit guarding the gate, then do like if you would want to seize it. Your units would be in the siege camp, waiting your order to go in like in an indoor battle. In those your mounted units couldn't use their mount and would be dismounted. But only a certain amount of units can go in each turn, so you can't wait for everyone and then go with your whole army on the first turn. But it's not because you're fighting inside that the exterior world is frozen, you still have to play on the outside field, because if the enemy sent reinforcements, you would be taken by surprise. So it's like you played two maps (or more) in one. I would keep the holy blood/weapons feature since i find it really fun, and this time you could use them all (and maybe all at the same time in the last chapter). They would still be a bit broken, but really harder to acquire, so I think it balance it a bit. And, very important, a LOT of units, even if they don't have any real impact on the story, they would have their own back-story via supports and talks. And for equipment, the FE4 system because I think it's the funniest.

Edit : Oh damn I forgot! The TearRing Saga skill system, just the best ever.

Edited March 15, 2013 by Aether911

[MacLovin]

Never Ending Generations of Children and limitless reclass.

[BrightBow]

Well, let's see...

-I would really like to bring back the Fatigue system. But it would work significantly different.

For one thing, fatigue would only drop by a limited amount of points per chapter. Deployed units would recover slower then does in the reserve but it wouldn't just instantly reset like in Thracia.

But more importantly, I would have exhaustion cause an continually increasing attribute drop.

That way, you are encouraged to keep a larger team instead of dominating the whole game with like two units, through the sheer power of levels and stats.

And in order to avoid the obligatory Jagen to curbstomb the whole first half of the game, I would give him a "skill" that makes him exhaust particularly fast.

-Speaking of skills, I would like to overhaul the skill system even further then Awakening. So that there are effectively barely any more random chance skills.

So skills like Adept can be used when you want, BUT it comes at the cost of a resource, like MP or something. Kinda like in Dragon Quest IX.

That way it becomes a deliberate tactical judgment call instead of mere luck. It would also allow to further individualize characters by introducing characters who may have low states but have a high MP to use for double attacking, backstabbing, paralyzing or whatever...

MP would also be used as an opportunity for more creative spells and as a transformation gauge for Manaketes.

-PCC would definitely be back. It's essentially favorite mechanic in the series.

It allows critical hits to be manipulated to the point of being reliable and serves as a further distinguishing feature between characters.

-Critical hits would also be like in Thracia, so they can serve as a way to overcome high defense units with brute force.

-Forced dismounting during indoor chapters would also be back. I liked that those chapters gave foot units some time to shine. No need to force them to use swords, though. But their weapon rank would temporarily drop.

And foot units would also gain increased terrain advantage. In fact, mounted units might even be disadvantaged on difficult terrain. Kinda like in "Battle for Wesnoth".

-I MIGHT bring back the Monshu/Thracia support system.

Because you wouldn't deploy a unit for half the game just because it provides meaningful supports for the second half. But if a character provides those support from the get go, then it might be a different story.

But this system has of course it's own downsides. Maybe I would use it like in Telius. It technically had both systems. It was just that those "Bond" supports were so rare and had only 1-range. So they weren't of much use.

-I also would like to bring back replacement units in exchange for Casual mode. But their level would be adjusted based on campaign progression and not on the level average.

-I think that resource management is an important factor during Fire Emblem. And infinite resources undermine that.

So there would be no access to every shop through a world map. And no side chapters for infinite gold and infinite EXP.

Edited March 15, 2013 by BrightBow

[Rehab]

I think item management the way Fire Emblem has generally done it is dumb, unless there are reasons given why nonmagical weapons can't be repaired. It's a pet peeve of mine that steel weapons aren't superior to iron weapons in every way but cost, so a FE game made specifically made for me would either have practically infinite durability weapons like in FE4, or would make steel weapons better than iron in every way but make them an order of magnitude more rare for the player than they've usually been, and give me a good reason I can't get them repaired.

A transition between generations could go a lot of ways. FE4 made a dramatically huge twist out of it, but they could also just have the parents fight one war and, depending on the outcome, have the kids fight a different conflict entirely, fight a new but related conflict born of the first gen's fight, or have the war the first generation fought still be raging by the time the second generation is of fighting age. And/Or they could have the difference in generations be so huge that one of them is full of the ancestors of another, without getting time manipulation involved.

It might eventually get questionable how much room there is in one game, but hey speculation woo

Definitely +1 here on Skills being activated by decision, unless they're passive skills that are either constantly in effect or activate under certain conditions (which hopefully don't involve an activation rate).

Edited March 15, 2013 by Rehab

[inactive2832]

I would make everybody archers.

[Anacybele]

Haha, well, she wouldn't really have anything against men, (at least not in particular) but she would certainly hold her own and be every bit as badass as the other FE heroes. And, she would weild lances as her main weapon, instead of being effectively a Chrom/Lucina clone. I suppose she's like Ephraim in that regard. My basic outline for the beginning bit of a plot has her as a new recruit/mid-low ranking member in some guard or local militia, who, after a few missions, is assigned to a small platoon. Her platoon ends up running into a rather urgent trouble (one that would entail them being unable to retrieve help without running out of time before the help arrived) that turns out to be larger and wider-reaching than the realize, and before they know it, they're far separated from their main group, with rumors of the main group's safety being less than reassuring. That simple mission that began as a simple attempt to do what they could in an urgent situation ends up wrapping them up in a grand plot threatening the entire continent.

By the way, this story would be something like a hybrid of Blazing Sword's and Path of Radiance's; starting out on a small scale, it turns into an all out war later on, but there would be many personal elements to the story as well; Ike's nemesis...ship... with the Black Knight, and Eliwood's search for his father, to name a few examples. I should hope that it would be a very intriguing, riveting, and adventurous story. Also, you may not have seen the last of the main group near the beginning of the game, so keep your eyes peeled for familiar faces!

Ah, well, I created my lord character before Awakening was even announced, so I didn't try copying Chrom and Lucina or anything. xP

But you have an interesting idea going on there! :)

[Darros]

I'd make a new game completely, and throw out the My Unit feature. Sure, it's a nice feature, but I really wouldn't like to see it implemented in every FE from now on. Other than that I don't really know what I'd make.

[thetiger39]

Too much to tell. A Main female lord with deep backstory. She would be an archer class at the start of the game. Make it happen IS. We haven't seen a bow lord yet. FE14. I would like to see at least one male/female character per class with no gender specific class bases or caps. Maybe choose which order missions you would like to do like In starcraft II. You should choose what path your lord could go. Evil, good, something in between which would effect the ending and events in the game. And another feature is that the main lord can choose his/her own dialogue when engaged in conversations which would also effect certain outcomes. Bonus EXp should come back fe9 style. A revamped fatigue system where fatigued characters can still participate but with reduced stats. Add in a new mode whre if any player controlled unit dies, game over screen.

Edited March 16, 2013 by thetiger39

[Guy Starwind]

I just a FE4 remake.

[PresidentEden]

I'm actually writing the plot for a Nightmare-based Fire Emblem game unrelated to the others in the series. Setting is mostly akin to Renaissance Europe, but I've modeled various historical events prior to the start of the game on more recent developments (for instance, there's a continent-wide republican revolution some 30 years prior to game start). The goal is of course to be good at everything, but I'm putting most of my creative energies into attempting to write the most conceptually deep and involved plot of the franchise (if we were to call this game FE14; I haven't sampled many hack games at all), which I hope to be able to have bleed into the gameplay in a constructive manner. (As one example, without spoiling a lot, a certain state in the game is credited with inventing the pike and pike warfare technique, so you can expect a lot of grunts in that army to be carrying the horse-slaying weapons.) The game's different factions will have noticeably distinct army composition, which is ultimately derived from their climate and political structure. One thing I am playing with is the idea of replacing the typical cavalier roles (Cain/Abel/etc.) with wyvern knights who do the same thing (the idea being that the player's state is amenable to wyverns and thus that they replace the horse as the mount of choice), but I don't know how feasible it is given the setting I've chosen to date.

[Jimmy_Smith]

A 3rd Gen of FF4, when Seliph turns villian.

[Anacybele]

Too much to tell. A Main female lord with deep backstory. She would be an archer class at the start of the game. Make it happen IS. We haven't seen a bow lord yet.

Blade Lord Lyn says hi. I'd prefer a female that uses lances, honestly. Or gains them, as I have mine do. And one that's required to use too, unlike Lucina.

Edited March 16, 2013 by Anacybele

[WyvernSurfer]

If logic was thrown out the window? With all possible resources? *Cracks knuckles* Build upon Awakening's style - more customized supports with everyone (Almost) interacting with or romancing everyone. The supports will be more in-tune with the main and side storylines and predict or reflect past, present or future events. Have a branching storyline with a different variety of enemies, maps and final bosses along with something of a choice system (Drive all invaders from kingdom or risk lives and take the chance to take out the head of the snake). Sort of like the system in Daggerfall. Make class evolution more customizable with different perks and skills. Have the enemy packing unpredictible fire power that forces the player to pay special attention to each loadout, Also have players try to win favor with other nations to ease the would-be impossible late-game levels. I'd probably cut this idea but make skirmishes scale with cast of characters to make grinding much more difficult. I'd love to add an arena subplot as a way to train, acquire rewards and gain morale.

I would focus on building the story foundations of the nations (And possibly continents) more. Have said nations and empires contain different styles as other FE games (Sacae produces capable myrmidons and nomads while Bern is home to great Wyvern fighters) and be governed by different races, though it really isn't necessary. Focus on not making races generic fantasy copy-n-pastes and have the cast of characters be of these different backgrounds. I probably would include all previous races like Laguz and Manaketes. Add a darker more depressing tone, similar to FE4 and, this may be a bit too broad, more moral ambiguity overall.

The main character would be a human lord whose personality is primarily governed by storyline choices.

That's all I've got.

Edited March 16, 2013 by WyvernSurfer

[thetiger39]

Blade Lord Lyn says hi. I'd prefer a female that uses lances, honestly. Or gains them, as I have mine do. And one that's required to use too, unlike Lucina.

What i meant was a lord that was locked to only bows until promition. Oh yes we need a lord that's locked to staves until promotion.

[Rewjeo]

For what it's worth, TRS has a bow-locked lord (until promotion) and a couple lord-esque staff chicks. One of whom can turn into a dragon on command.

Nothing too specific, but I would like to see a grittier, realer Fire Emblem. However great FE13's gameplay may be, everything else feels kinda like a fan-game to me, and that irks me.