Character Quantity Over Quality?

[Mr. Myrmidon]

I've heard that each route(Hoshido,Nohr,Neutral) each have more characters than Awakening.While quite a few overlaps are a given, do you think the sheer amount of characters will heavily affect the quality? To be honest, I don't completely mind if the If characters are similar to past characters.I only wish for them to have some depth and changes to their character over the course of the story.

[Ryo]

This time, there are more characters than there were in “Awakening,” so we were a little worried whether Mr. Kozaki would take up the offer or not.

They didn't specify if it was each route or the whole game. I would assume the whole game.

[Rizziah]

If there were more playable characters than Awakening for both routes (and maybe the third? I dunno), that'd go past 100, easily.

My theory is that they probably have about 30 something unique characters for each route, not counting the characters who join you no matter what. So anywhere in the 60's or 70's for the overall total would be my guess, which is quite a lot, but maybe easier to deal with then awakening cause they're seperated, and probably don't have as many supports.

[Neoleo21]

I'm actually not sure, FE: if's dev time is around 3 years which is pretty long for an FE game's dev time and especially for one that is reusing its predecessor's engine. Its possible that they could incorporate a sizable cast with enough support conversations to develop them properly. My guess is around 60-70 in total.

[Lynsanity]

Wasn't there a dev interview where they were nervous about getting Kozaki back because he would have "even more" characters to design than Awakening? It kind of sounded like FE14 had more characters than FE13 by a manageable margin, not 60+.

I'm guessing each route will have roughly equivalent to the 1st generation of characters in Awakening. That would result in about 45, 50 characters.

[Kirokan]

They mentioned each individual game is packed with as much content as Awakening. So I expect there to be quite a few... now whether or not they will all be developed beyond simplistic tropes remains to be seen!

[Thedeathby2]

Most of that 3 year development time was spent on giving the character's feet.

[goodperson707]

^ which character?

Though i am also exited that all the characters have feet. :)

The characters' feet are an exciting notion that's for sure. :)

[nocturnal YL]

I assume that by saying each route is Awakening-sized, they mean the game's length. Characters may be a different story.

I'd skew towards quantity. I find Radiant Dawn a good example, actually. Botching supports aside, each character is at least distictively defined by their character traits (except maybe Gareth, but even he isn't devoid of personality). My favourite characters in the series aren't always well-defined, and that aspect has never bothered me.

[Knight]

The more characters the better IMO. From a gameplay stand point, this gives more options and replay value, from a story stand point, it helps make your troops feel more like an army and you have more of a chance of finding a favourite character. If any of you say that it might be reducing the total amount of support conversations for each character, then I say that's fine, a ton of support convos aren't needed to define a character, only a handful of good ones.

[dragonlordsd]

Generally, I've found that quantity increases chance of quality. It's easier to find characters you like if you have more to choose from. I like getting attached to weird secondary characters. (Renault, Fir, Sheema, Fiona, etc.)

[arvilino]

I think expecting the whole playable cast to develop and their personality to change over the course of the game would be unreasonable. Even the lower end of Fire Emblem numbers is still multiple times greater than standard RPG group sizes. After a certain point there's going to be too many characters to reasonably be developed over the course of the game and even if they did it'd be tedious to have all that dialogue and 30+ characters receiving a high level of depth and focus in the main story.

In the case of the player it might be a bit much for them if it was mandatory to rememberi all the individual plot threads and character development of a cast of 30+ to understand the story and why 30+ characters each did certain things and at different point in the game. I think it's more important for the supporting cast who'll inevitably get less story focus to be very distinct and memorable in appearance, initial personality and/or statistics(e.g. starting stats, growths, skills, class) which is appropriate for a game witha large number of characters.

[Augestein]

I'm even with the amount of characters, they just don't have the insane amount of supports which are what caused the characters to be kinda ho-hum at moments in awakening.

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

I'm even with the amount of characters, they just don't have the insane amount of supports which are what caused the characters to be kinda ho-hum at moments in awakening.

thats really the biggest issue with awakening's supports.

however everyone having 5-8 supports or, infinite or not uses, sounds alright with me, it just means the quality of them will be better focused.