Fire Emblem's lost art of minor boss characters

[Jotari]

Fire Emblem has a lot of characters. Part of that reason is because the gameplay asks for a large cast, but another reason is that, from the beginning, they made a commitment towards every chapter in the series having a boss that was someone in universe. And aside from a few scattered chapters where generic monsters are bosses or there are no bosses at all, that's something they've stuck to throughout the years. In the NES games most of these boss characters had no dialogue at all and rotated the same five portraits, but slowly over time they got better and better at giving some form of characterization to these enemies. Some are put upon workman pissed at their boss, some are outright psychos, some are comedic. It's not the deepest characterization, they only have the opportunity to say a handful of lines before they're killed, but they definitely produced some standout favourites.

And I'm saying all of this in past tense because minor bosses suck in Fire Emblem now, and have done for about ten years. Engage is the pinnacle of this. For one because you spend eight chapters fighting the same four bosses over and over again, so it doesn't have much opportunity to even have minor bosses. But even when it does...ya, they suck. Half of us didn't even realize they reused one of the minor bosses a second time. And just for added cruelty, here is all the minor bosses in Engage and why they suck.

*Abyme: The aforementioned boss so unmemorable you probably didn't realize you fought her twice. Once at the start of the game when Veyle kills Lumeria and then again on the boss chapter. Her personality is...honestly I have no idea. She says absolutely nothing of note.

*Rodnie: This is the guy you fight in chapter 4, when you first get Celica. He has some potential as what little dialogue he has expresses a dislike for the Corrupted, preferring real soldiers. Would have been nice to see that explored even a tiny bit more, both with him individually and thematically with the Elusian military and non corrupted population as a whole.

*Nelucce: The guy you first show up with Zephia. The one minor boss in Engage I would describe as "good". Not because he is actually charismatic or likable as a character, or even particularly unlikable. But because he's the only one of the bunch that actually feels like he has a personality and you'd be capable of remembering.

*Teronda: Generic bandit man. That's a new thing for the series >.>

*Mitan: The boss of Anna's paralogue. She's inherently interesting for being a female generic bandit...because that's a substitute for having an actual personality.

*The Bandit Twins: Fire Emblem's tradition of bandit twins, only without anything that made them even half remotely memorable, funny, interesting or visually distinct.

And that's it. You only fight minor bosses in six chapters, meaning you fight each individual member of the hounds just as many times (and collectively chapters with the Hounds more). This is a really poor showing. And I think it's a trend that's been going on for a while. The last game I would say had a good cast of minor bosses was Awakening. Cervantes, Pheros and Mustafa are all decently memorable in their own ways. So much so I expect people would even challenge the notion that they're minor bosses.  But then we got Fates and Three Houses, where they decided to circumnavigate minor bosses by having you fight your own playable cast. Fates even let's you play as the minor bosses via capturing, but hell if I can remember anything about them other than what they look like. Three Houses does a bit better with them, especially if you count Miklan and Lonato as minor bosses since they only appear in one chapter (though they are given a lot more plot weight than a typical minor boss), but the game is weighed down by them just not bothering to give a bunch of its minor bosses unique portraits (justice for Baron Dominic!). I'm surprise they even gave minor boss Gwendal a unique design. Three Hopes is this ramped up to 11 where half the time the bosses lack a unique face and even a unique name, being Baron or Count X.

Between them we also had Shadows of Valentia, which did give unique portraits to all the NES bosses. But honestly, they didn't really do anything beyond that. I guess Nuibaba was originally a minor boss who they upgraded to a slightly more relevant characters and that's nice. Marla and Hestia also got some actual dialogue, which I like, minor as it is. But the rest of them didn't get any real characterization beyond their mute NES counterparts. What particularly irks me is Jamil, the boss of Duma's gate who can use the same AOE Earthquake attack as Duma, even back in Gaiden. That's cool, why is he the only one that can do it? A question that Shadows of Valentia didn't bother to answer at all. Oh, but they did decide to make the Earthquake separating Alm and Celica an action by the enemy and not random chance and they...gave it to a generic enemy instead of utilizing the one character in the game that actually has Earthquake powers other than Duma. Those dots were practically preconnected!

Well that's just my little rant. I feel like the quality of minor bosses has degraded considerably in recent years. You might claim they were never that great and it was only some isolated examples, but overall it just feels like there's a lack of effort being put in where there was some extra passion before.

[Acacia Sgt]

This is probably the SRW fan in me talking, but I don't really mind it much. I'm fine with either approach, but I think recurring bosses offer the chance to flesh them out as characters. Whether Engage succeeded in that is a separate matter, but on paper I'm fine with the idea of "I've been defeated, but I can't fall here". Maybe we are just so used to Permadeath we also expect it on our enemies, but if the player has Casual mode now, why not the enemy too...

[Codename Shrimp]

enemies should only retreat on casual mode, otherwise they die

[Etrurian emperor]

I think part of the loss of minor characters has to do that playable characters from opposing factions now tend to serve as bosses, as was the case in Fates and Three Houses. Therefore its strange that when this feature was dropped the minor bosses still didn't return.

Though to Fates credit I should point out its paralogues have a pretty impressive rogues gallery with some very unique designs. There's also Haitaka, who although the game mostly ignores him is in quite the interesting position. That he's so rascist that he goes out of his way to abduct and maybe kill a girl all his masters(minus Takumi) are very fond of shows how extreme he's gotten. Later on during Azura's boss fights with the royals they also call him a ''renegade'' which could mean he turned on Hoshido.

To Three Houses lack of credit the game also removed minor bosses when they should logically be present. The beastmaster in Ignatz and Rapheal's paralogue is just a generic Paladin, as is count dominic who's his own character and the shady arms dealer trying to marry Ingrid doesn't appear in person.

For Engage the reason minor bosses are mostly absence seem to be the reliance on the Four Hounds, as well as having the Emblems be paralogue bosses. Both decisions I find rather dubious and less interesting than the alternative would have been.

Minor bosses are great for worldbuilding. Part of the reason Tellius might still trump Fodlan is because their respective countries get conveyed through the bosses you fight against. 

Edited September 6, 2023 by Etrurian emperor

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

Justice for Kotaro and Iago and that Zola and Hans guy! This is Nohr and (would be) allies/subjects erasure!

Amundsen would like to know your location.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

Yeah, the choice to not give names or portraits to the minor bosses is certainly to Three Houses' detriment. Baron Dominic is one such egregious case, being a generic Paladin. But the worst one, to me, may be the chapter 4 boss. You know, the Dark Mage at the Holy Tomb (or was it Mausoleum?)? He was important enough to be the ringleader of the group, robbing the grave of Seiros, and even appearing in the chapter's end cutscene with an inexplicable "magical shield" power. But not important enough to get his own name, or anything aside from the generic Dark Mage portrait and model? Lame.

As for Echoes, are we counting the likes of Slayde and Fernand as "minor bosses"? Because I think those two were rather strong ones, with their own characterization and everything. But if we're just talking "appear once, then die" bosses... yeah, SoV doesn't have too many of those of interest. Although, I did appreciate the trend of Celica continuously having to fight "---th" bosses. That was funny.

[Saint Rubenio]

I believe budgetary issues might be the main reason for the disappearance of minor bosses. Keep in mind, in the old days they just had to give them a face, a couple lines and a statline, boom you got a boss. Sometimes not even a face, they recycled one from a previous boss. Nowadays, a boss needs a portrait, a model, a voice actor... Having the Four Hounds be the bosses of 2/3rds of the game is just cheaper and more convenient than having a fully-fledged throwaway. Modern FE games already feel like they are stretched thin in this regard, particularly Houses with its four routes. They probably can't afford to create superfluous characters like that.

That's just a theory, though. As someone who loves throwaway bosses enough to spend a few months working on a hack entirely about them shameless plug I know but I'd say it's relevant, it certainly saddens me that they're mostly gone. I would argue Engage at least managed to introduce some variety to the encounters by giving them different emblems each time, but there were definitely chapters where the game would've benefitted from having a bossman instead of the same four idiots for the umpteenth time. And... honestly, I just like throwaways. They're neat.

Edited September 6, 2023 by Saint Rubenio

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Jamil can earthquake in Gaiden? I never saw it. Not sure I saw Duma do it either, he was just non threateningly summoning Biggles until I got to him. If he did earthquake, I had two fortify users with global range so it wouldn't have been a problem.

Anyway I would say SoV did a good job overall if the biggest issue is failing to throw in a line about Jamil having been the cause of that earthquake separating Alm and Celica. If we can make the connection, whose to say the developers didn't also? They do add a duma cult battle at that point of the game, so maybe Jamil chose only to do the earthquake after learning that the assassination attempt failed. If his orders are to stop her from garrisoning with Sofia, then his mission is a success. Fernand and Berkut are inspiring additions to the game. There's a map with three random paladins in Act 3? Let's use that. Maria and Hestia share a recolored portrait with Sonya? Let's use that. Slayde discovers Princess Anthiese still lives in the prologue? Great. Finally a justification for why Mycen had to move her to an even more discreet location when Ram was evidently a safe location all along for Alm.

What exactly do we wish would be done with one-off boss characters? I'm not convinced any existing idea from old Fire Emblem is that compelling. Certainly not "Give Ike a talk conversation with every boss". Him blurting out "Whoa! So you're a mage huh?" is still waiting to be made into a meme. 

[Jotari]

5 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Though to Fates credit I should point out its paralogues have a pretty impressive rogues gallery with some very unique designs.

As I said in the OP, I think the Fates bosses certainly look memorable, but I don't think they ever do or say anything that actually feels memorable. In other words they have good character designs without good characterization to back it up.

5 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

There's also Haitaka, who although the game mostly ignores him is in quite the interesting position. That he's so rascist that he goes out of his way to abduct and maybe kill a girl all his masters(minus Takumi) are very fond of shows how extreme he's gotten. Later on during Azura's boss fights with the royals they also call him a ''renegade'' which could mean he turned on Hoshido.

Haitaka isn't intended to be, but he's freaking hilarious and a prime example of Fates, particularly Conquest's absurd writing. The guy has absolutely no sense to him at all and achieves absolutely nothing but getting himself trapped in a dragon fossil about to be dissolved by acid. And that's before the main characters show up! I've seen someone else describe his plan as Step 1: Kidnap Azura. Step 2: ??? Step 3: Profit. And, yeah, that's apt. The dude obviously had no clear idea of what he was doing or how he intended to achieve it. Shame he didn't appear in Birthright too. All that resentment he had just vanishes if it's not required to macguiver the plot into a specific place.

5 hours ago, Imuabicus der Fertige said:

Justice for Kotaro and Iago and that Zola and Hans guy! This is Nohr and (would be) allies/subjects erasure!

Amundsen would like to know your location.

I certainly wouldn't describe Iago and Hans as minor bosses. They appear very frequently throughout the story and are one of the major opponents of Corrin regardless of route. Kotaro would be closer, but the dude still rules his own kingdom and killed the family of several playable characters. Zola almost definitely is a minor boss though...on Conquest and Revelation. In Birthright he...gets his plot arc. Which on retrospect is really weird. I know it was supposed to be a red herring for possessed Takumi who is also just not a thing, but it's still weird they chose Zola of all people to dedicate a chunk of Birthright's plot to.

5 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Yeah, the choice to not give names or portraits to the minor bosses is certainly to Three Houses' detriment. Baron Dominic is one such egregious case, being a generic Paladin. But the worst one, to me, may be the chapter 4 boss. You know, the Dark Mage at the Holy Tomb (or was it Mausoleum?)? He was important enough to be the ringleader of the group, robbing the grave of Seiros, and even appearing in the chapter's end cutscene with an inexplicable "magical shield" power. But not important enough to get his own name, or anything aside from the generic Dark Mage portrait and model? Lame.

That's a fantastic example. And now that I think about it, who even was that guy? Was he with the Western Church or the Agarthans? On the subject of the Agarthans, they had a themed naming going on being named after the seven sages of Greece (except Kronya for some reason). Except the only ever bothered to create four Agarthan characters and the others are just faceless mooks with names. Myson is the weirdest one as they kept having him show up a bunch of times yet just never do anything with him.

5 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

As for Echoes, are we counting the likes of Slayde and Fernand as "minor bosses"? Because I think those two were rather strong ones, with their own characterization and everything. But if we're just talking "appear once, then die" bosses... yeah, SoV doesn't have too many of those of interest. Although, I did appreciate the trend of Celica continuously having to fight "---th" bosses. That was funny.

No, I wouldn't personally call Slayde or Fernand minor bosses. Slayde gets additional material in the prologue and then lived (even though I really think he shouldn't have) up until almost the end game. Fernand meanwhile has major interactions with several of the player characters, basically becomes Berkut's best bro and represents some of the major themes of the game. They're more PoR Oliver tier bosses than PoR Gromell tier bosses.

59 minutes ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Jamil can earthquake in Gaiden? I never saw it. Not sure I saw Duma do it either, he was just non threateningly summoning Biggles until I got to him. If he did earthquake, I had two fortify users with global range so it wouldn't have been a problem.

That's Duma, but yes Jamil can do it too. How did you have two Fortify users on Celica's route in Gaiden? Tatiana is the only character who learns Fortify and she's on Alm'a route.

59 minutes ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Anyway I would say SoV did a good job overall if the biggest issue is failing to throw in a line about Jamil having been the cause of that earthquake separating Alm and Celica. If we can make the connection, whose to say the developers didn't also?

Well the fact that they explicitly show someone other than Jamil doing it. But Jamil not doing it isn't the real issue. That's just my personal pet peeve. The real issue is, who the hell is Jamil? 

59 minutes ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Maria and Hestia share a recolored portrait with Sonya? Let's use that.

Marla and Hestia were already Sonya's sisters in Gaiden. So they didn't so much use something as they did actually make that explicit (with battle convos that happen with anyone even though the they're talking directly to Sonya the whole time? Eh, *shrug* I guess that shows how messed up in the head they are, still a shame unique boss convos didn't exist in Gaiden beyond that one example).

59 minutes ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

What exactly do we wish would be done with one-off boss characters? I'm not convinced any existing idea from old Fire Emblem is that compelling. Certainly not "Give Ike a talk conversation with every boss". Him blurting out "Whoa! So you're a mage huh?" is still waiting to be made into a meme. 

I'd like them to be memorable characters. Sure not every boss in Path of Radiance knocked it out of the park, but there definitely were some good ones. Ike's battle Convo with Homasa mentions Homasa's father trained him to fight with a sword just like Ike. That's a cool detail! Random boss man had a father who he got along well with. Bruce straddles the line being important in universe but only having a single conversation in the game, but we all know what he and Ashnard talk about in that single conversation. And who can forget Mr "Should have brought baby hostages" Schaeffer (or the priest boss in that same chapter too).

Edited September 6, 2023 by Jotari

[AnonymousSpeed]

I ain't reading all that but I agree with the title alone.

[lenticular]

Out of curiosity, I decided to try taking a sample of bosses from across the series. My totally-not-scientific methodology was to pick chapter 11 (which was a completely arbittrary choice, with the only reasoning behind it being "not too close to the beginning or the end") and looked up the boss in chapter 11 of each game. Except for Genealogy and Gaiden/SoV since they don't have a chapter 11. For games with multiple routes, I chose only one of them: 11A for BiBl, Eliwood route for BlaBl, Eirika route for SS, and Birthright for Fates. And for Radiant Dawn, I chose Part 3 Chapter 11.

I've never played any of the Japan-only games, so won't comment on them, but according to the wiki (New) Mystery gets Wyvern, Thracia 776 has Kempf, and Binding Blade has Orlo.

For the rest:

• Two don't have any named bosses at all, only generics. These are Sacred Stones and Birthright. The wiki claims the bosses are "Monster" and "Wyvern Lord", but given that both of them are rout maps, I think it's probably better to claim that they don't have a boss.
• Two have a major boss only: Gangrel in Awakening and Veyle in Engage.
• Two have both a major boss and a minor boss. Path of Radiance has Black Knight and Three Houses has the Flame Emperor.
• Three have a minor boss only, those being Shadow Dragon, Radiant Dawn, and Blazing Blade.

Those five minor bosses are: Goran, Groznyi, Khozen, Mackoya, and Metodey. And honestly, how many of those do you even remember? Can you match them to their games without looking them up? Maybe I'm just bad at remembering bosses, but I'd have known one of them by name without looking it up, and there's a second one who I vaguely remember after looking up, and then the other three I have no recollection of at all. So my not-at-all-scientific conclusion based on this would be that FE minor bosses have never been particularly interesting to begin with. Yeah, there have been some great and memorable ones, but I think they're the exception rather than the rule.

8 hours ago, Jotari said:

*The Bandit Twins: Fire Emblem's tradition of bandit twins, only without anything that made them even half remotely memorable, funny, interesting or visually distinct.

Given that the only thing that was unique about the bandit twins was the worst kind of queer-coded villains, then I'm super glad that was removed. As a result, Tetchie and Totchie are probably my favourite bandit twins in the series.

[Acacia Sgt]

9 minutes ago, lenticular said:

Those five minor bosses are: Goran, Groznyi, Khozen, Mackoya, and Metodey. And honestly, how many of those do you even remember? Can you match them to their games without looking them up?

I'll admit I can only do that with Groznyi and Khozen.

Khozen is one of the game's few Manakete bosses that aren't Medeus, alongside Mannu, Xemcel, and Morzas. So that's memorable in a way.

While it's Chapter 11, it's the first chapter of Eliwood's story, so Groznyi can also be seen as a first boss and not hard to remember in that sense. Then again, maybe I can't be one to talk.

...

Groznyi, Wire, Zagan, Boies, Puzon, Eric, Sealen, Bauker, Bernard, Damian (and Fargus is technically as boss there too), Zoldam, Uhai, Aion (and Kishuna first time), Theodor, Cameron, Darin, Oleg, Eubans, Paul, Jasmine, Kishuna second time, Lloyd/Linus, Pascal, Vaida, Kenneth/Jerme, Maxime, Ursula, Sonia, Linus/Lloyd, Georg/Kaim, Denning, Limstella, Kishuna third time, the Morph bosses, Nergal, Fire Dragon...

... I'll honestly be surprised if I did got them all.

On the flip side, I can't give you the full list for Lyn's Mode. Batta, Glass, Pugu, Bug, Heintz, Beyard, Yogi, Eagler, Lundgren... yeah, I know I'm missing someone there. The Ganelon bosses...

9 minutes ago, lenticular said:

Given that the only thing that was unique about the bandit twins was the worst kind of queer-coded villains, then I'm super glad that was removed. As a result, Tetchie and Totchie are probably my favourite bandit twins in the series.

Tellius had them as Laguz, who wanted to EAT the party. I think they were like, the only outright evil Laguz in both games, so that also makes them stand out.

[Jotari]

34 minutes ago, lenticular said:

 Mystery gets Wyvern, Thracia 776 has Kempf, and Binding Blade has Orlo.

 

Those five minor bosses are: Goran, Groznyi, Khozen, Mackoya, and Metodey. .

In all honesty, without looking it up, 4/7. Kempf is S tier minor boss being a complete douche, though he does challenge the concept by living through his introductory chapter only to be unceremoniously dispatched later.

Orlo, I thought I remembered because I mistook him for Ovo, a Genealogy of the Holy War boss who is unique only in the fact that he has a unique face.

Goran is memorable in how weird he is as a character. Being a fanatical ally of Micaiah's that we never actually see from Micaiah's POV (and also having more leadership stars than her, which works for gameplay but makes no sense characterwise). He's also the only Crossbow specialist in the entire series, which is neat.

Khozen is a dragon in Archanea. Eazy to remember in how dragony his name sounds. All in all he isn't that memorable in the games, but he actually has a pretty badass encounter in the manga where he fights like Corrin, half transforming his body while simultaneously using magic. He insults Michalis, kidnaps Marth (the first use of Entrap in the series, though not identified as such), almost kills Abel and is finally finished off by a vengeful Michalis after crawling through the dirt and rain (the Shadow Dragon Manga is actually great).

Metodey is also remember for being a pretty decent Three Houses minor boss. Mainly because he has an actual personality as a complete psycho. Which is fun for Edelgard morality discussions. He also appears in the Cindered Shadows DLC.

That being said, my knowledge of Fire Emblem is pretty encyclopedic and shouldn't be taken as a general populace's view of those bosses. I also wouldn't class Khozen or Goran as having particularly good personalities and are more memorable for unrelated gameplay reasons.

34 minutes ago, lenticular said:

Given that the only thing that was unique about the bandit twins was the worst kind of queer-coded villains, then I'm super glad that was removed. As a result, Tetchie and Totchie are probably my favourite bandit twins in the series.

Honestly I'd say they're not even queer coded and just effeminate an that is also varies from appearance to appearance. But it's not an off topic rabbit hole I'm going to get into now. We'll have that conversation some day. Maybe after I learn the nuances of queer coding in Japanese and have a lookise at the original script.

Edited September 7, 2023 by Jotari

[Acacia Sgt]

Oro/Orlo was that douche bishop. I certainly remember him well. Being all "If I say I do it in the gods name, then it's okay". Elen and Saul have battle quotes against him where they're appalled a Church bishop would act that way.

[Jotari]

23 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Oro/Orlo was that douche bishop. I certainly remember him well. Being all "If I say I do it in the gods name, then it's okay". Elen and Saul have battle quotes against him where they're appalled a Church bishop would act that way.

Oh yes, now that I think of where in Binding Blade chapter 11 would be, I remember him and that chapter overall. What's really funny about that is that if the other boss from that chapter had been chosen I would have remembered him, that character being Roberts. And I only remember him because A)He is a hard mode late turn reinforcement, meaning the vast majority of players don't know he exists and B)I have compiled a list of all Fire Emblem characters with similar names.

[lenticular]

Thinking about Three Houses specifically, what it really needed was Kezhda. I mean, not actual literal Kezhda, obviously, but comparable substitute bosses. The selection of bosses in Part 2 is fine if you don't bother to recruit anyone, but awful if you do. If the replacements at least had names and a single line of dialogue then that would have really helped, I think. For bonus points, it would have been fun if they gave specific interactions between the recruited unit and their replacement. So, let's say I recruit Petra then her replacement assassin might also be from Brigid and if I have them fight each other then they'd have a bit of dialogue about how they are both doing what they thought best for their country. And so on.

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

But it's not an off topic rabbit hole I'm going to get into now.

Agreed. I'm quite happy to agree to disagree; I just wanted to state my case and then be done.

[Jotari]

22 minutes ago, lenticular said:

Thinking about Three Houses specifically, what it really needed was Kezhda. I mean, not actual literal Kezhda, obviously, but comparable substitute bosses. The selection of bosses in Part 2 is fine if you don't bother to recruit anyone, but awful if you do. If the replacements at least had names and a single line of dialogue then that would have really helped, I think. For bonus points, it would have been fun if they gave specific interactions between the recruited unit and their replacement. So, let's say I recruit Petra then her replacement assassin might also be from Brigid and if I have them fight each other then they'd have a bit of dialogue about how they are both doing what they thought best for their country. And so on.

Agreed. I'm quite happy to agree to disagree; I just wanted to state my case and then be done.

That would have indeed be fun. Though considering how many bosses they didn't give them unique art for, if it were to happen I would except randomly generated names and class artwork. There's also an example of this happening with an ally. In the non Black Eagles the Monastery defense chapters the swordmaster that you have to escort on the right of the map is meant to be Catherine. Not that you'd know it since pretty much everyone recruits Catherine.

[Acacia Sgt]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Oh yes, now that I think of where in Binding Blade chapter 11 would be, I remember him and that chapter overall. What's really funny about that is that if the other boss from that chapter had been chosen I would have remembered him, that character being Roberts. And I only remember him because A)He is a hard mode late turn reinforcement, meaning the vast majority of players don't know he exists and B)I have compiled a list of all Fire Emblem characters with similar names.

Another thing I suppose is that his portrait is one of the few that gets re-used twice, not just once. With Windam and Martel. Windam is the Aureola gaiden boss who expresses regret on siding with Arcado and Roartz, and Martel is the Ilian boss who forces Niime to use a weather-changing tome, which ends up freezing the rivers on the map.

Edited September 7, 2023 by Acacia Sgt

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Another thing I suppose is that his portrait is one of the few that gets re-used twice, not just once. With Windam and Martel. Windam is the Aureola gaiden boss who expresses regret on siding with Arcado and Roartz, and Martel is the Ilian boss who forces Niime to use a weather-changing tome, which ends up freezing the rivers on the map.

That's one good thing I can be thankful to Engage for on this topic, not continuing Three Houses trend of having shared or generic boss portraits. I hope we can just mark that off as a Koei oddity in the post Binding Blade world.

Edited September 7, 2023 by Jotari

[Acacia Sgt]

13 minutes ago, Jotari said:

That's one good thing I can be thankful to Engage for on this topic, not continuing Three Houses trend of having shared or generic boss portraits. I hope we can just mark that off as a Koei oddity in the post Binding Blade world.

It's as Saint Rubenio said. Due to the resources needed to make each boss unique in the 3D and voiced era, and the sheer number of them, meant it was bound to happen to resort to just generics.

Well, it actually didn't stop after Binding Blade. A few Blazing Blade bosses are still palette swaps, including a few NPC's. Marquess Araphen and Aion, to give an example. Awakening, from what I recall, also engaged in portrait reuse. I think they didn't even bother recoloring them there. Like, this is the Chapter 5 boss:

https://fireemblemwiki.org/wiki/Orton

And the Paralogue 7 boss:

https://fireemblemwiki.org/wiki/Xalbador

Just straight up the same portrait.

Edited September 7, 2023 by Acacia Sgt

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

It's as Saint Rubenio said. Due to the resources needed to make each boss unique in the 3D and voiced era, and the sheer number of them, meant it was bound to happen to resort to just generics.

I'm not sure I buy that explanation to be honest. Okay, maybe making distinct 3D models like Engage is a bit of a challenge, but that absolutely doesn't have to be the way to go. Commissioning a single still frame of artwork is not going to break the bank for games as big as these. It's not like they're expected to be master pieces of art, and you can even go a long way just editing certain features. I am extremely poor at creating art, but even I've managed to go a long way just giving characters light haircuts and substituting some wardrobe.

Makes me wonder what Fire Emblem game has the most unique portraits. I feel like it might be Blazing Blade. I think even today it might have the most chapters (beating out Radiant Dawn mainly because of all those short Lyn mode chapters and complete nothing Hector mode chapters).

2 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

https://fireemblemwiki.org/wiki/Orton

And the Paralogue 7 boss:

https://fireemblemwiki.org/wiki/Xalbador

Just straight up the same portrait.

I never noticed Orton and Xalbador I must confess. The one that I did notice was that they reused the early game Wyvern boss for a DLC boss, but in that case they actually kept him having the same name (and just never commented on it) and made him an other world counterpart despite being involved in an entirely different scenario.

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

8 hours ago, Jotari said:

I certainly wouldn't describe Iago and Hans as minor bosses. They appear very frequently throughout the story and are one of the major opponents of Corrin regardless of route. Kotaro would be closer, but the dude still rules his own kingdom and killed the family of several playable characters. Zola almost definitely is a minor boss though...on Conquest and Revelation. In Birthright he...gets his plot arc. Which on retrospect is really weird. I know it was supposed to be a red herring for possessed Takumi who is also just not a thing, but it's still weird they chose Zola of all people to dedicate a chunk of Birthright's plot to.

Then the Ice tribe leader guy Klima, but I think I remember that the Ice Village is in at least two games (CQ I know fer sure) and he has a connection through Felicia and Flora.

Nope never mind, the BR boss of the map is Flora and Rev doesn´t strictly have a dedicated Ice Village map.

[Etrurian emperor]

I always had a giant soft spot for Path of Radiance's Kasatai. Gameplay wise he's even more minor than most minor bosses since he's not even the boss of his own map. But storywise he's about as well rounded as a minor boss could possibly be. Critical of, yet also polite and seemingly fond of Ena, patriotic and violent while still expressing worry of Ashnard maybe taking things too far, and his loyalty to Ena overshadowing his racism. Narratively he's also a useful tool due to Ena having to explain things to a self deluding Kasatai being a decent enough way to reveal Ashnard's mentality without him being present. 

[Parrhesia]

Honestly, minor bosses aren't even so much characters in themselves as they are invaluable in helping to set up the character of the nations they come from. You learn a lot just from the type of guy such and such a nation would promote. Pascal's existence makes the Black Fang clearly hypocritical in having ever claimed to be an 'honourable' murder-cult (the Fang, in general, feel like a writer's room divided hopelessly on what they're actually meant to be), Grado have a lot of professional military men in over their heads (Aias, Beran), while probably the ultimate example is Ridale.

I fucking love Ridale FE4. He's the last of the Zyne recolours, with the most garish cloak. He shows up in like Chapter 10, fresh off a child hunt, raring to go. He's murdered so many children, thrown so many non-combatants into the gulag, he's so ready to go fight the Crusaders. Okay, no. More child hunts. "You've got to be kidding me." What a fucking legend. FE4's wildly hit and miss with its writing, but Ridale's like seven lines sell the sheer banality of the late-stage evil Empire better than anything else in the game.

Obviously most don't really do a lot. There's a lot more... fuckin', uh... Zagans than Ridales, four or five Weissmans (Weissmen?) for every Schaefer. But they're still nice to have around, even the mediocre ones.

If we're shilling hacks, I hurled in about three or four a chapter in Drums, for the most part. One of my favourite parts of putting it all together, honestly.

I hope the series isn't moving away from them, and that Engage's fascination with recurring bosses is just a one-off aberration. I do think, 98% of the time, if you put someone down on the map they should be dead in the narrative; every other idiot teleporting away on 'death' was one of the greatest of FFT's many flaws, and was maybe even more grating in the Tactics Ogres.

Edited September 7, 2023 by Parrhesia

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

I fucking love Ridale FE4. He's the last of the Zyne recolours, with the most garish cloak. He shows up in like Chapter 10, fresh off a child hunt, raring to go. He's murdered so many children, thrown so many non-combatants into the gulag, he's so ready to go fight the Crusaders. Okay, no. More child hunts. "You've got to be kidding me." What a fucking legend. FE4's wildly hit and miss with its writing, but Ridale's like seven lines sell the sheer banality of the late-stage evil Empire better than anything else in the game.

It's weirdly hilarious in a dark sort of way. This is a man who is so evil that he's literally killing children for a living, yet he doesn't want to kill children, not out of morality, just because he's so done with it as a job.

Another Genealogy boss I like is Brian. He skirts the line a bit being a minor boss as, much like Bryce, he's actually a pretty important guy in universe, but the plot just doesn't have any interest in giving him focus at all. It's clear from what little dialogue he has that he's just plain motivated by the fact that Seliph and Sigurd have murdered almost his entire family and that it's pretty much a blood feud for him now, and only at death does he start to become aware that he really didn't know anything about the conflict and had just been used as a pawn for his ability to use Helswath.