Fire Emblemfans got a surprise at the recent Nintendo Direct with the announcement of the franchise’s next entry.Fire Emblem Engagetells the story of Alear, a dragon child who awakens from a thousand-year nap to find the world in turmoil. A cabal of evil mages are following in the footsteps of their villainousFire Emblempredecessors by seeking the return of a dark dragon. To save the world, Alear and their companions must collect the Emblem Rings: powerful artifacts that can summon heroes of the past, called Emblems, to fight alongside them.
The idea of gathering heroes from across theFire Emblemfranchise in one place is hardly original;Fatesallowed players to scan amiibo to recruit characters, and theFire Emblem Heroesmobile game is all about summoning characters from other games.Fire Emblem Warriorsalso comes to mind as a game whose major selling point was featuring of characters from old games. However, based on a single trailer,Fire Emblem Engagealready seems to be handling its fan service better thanWarriorsdid.
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The Vertical Fan Service in Fire Emblem Warriors
Fire Emblem Warriorsis a musou game that married mechanics iconic toFire Emblemwith those fromtitles likeDynasty WarriorsandSamurai Warriors. While its successorFire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopesdoubled down on theThree Housessetting of Fodlan,Fire Emblem Warriorsmarketed itself as a parallel world where characters from differentFire Emblemgames would battle together.
However, when the game released, players were remiss to find onlya handful ofFire Emblem’s unique settingsrepresented. Most of the playable characters were spread between three games:Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon,Fire Emblem Awakening, andFire Emblem Fates.
Including DLC characters,Shadow Dragonhad six playable characters,Awakeninghad 10, andFateshad 13; including male and female options for Robin and Corrin from the latter two.Blazing SwordandShadows of Valentiaeach had a single character represented: Lyndis and Celica, respectively. Including theWarriorsoriginal protagonist twins and theFire Emblemstaple Anna, characters from three games made up 85 percent of the roster, andFire Emblem Fatesalonetook up over a third of it.
Fire Emblem Warriorswas by no means a bad game. It sold well, and it was popular enough to spark anotherFire Emblem Warriorsspin-off. That said,Fire Emblem Warriorswas not the romp throughFire Emblemhistory that most hoped it would be. With hundreds of characters across decades worth of games, there were plenty of missed opportunities for fan service, especially concerning older games in the franchise.
The Horizontal Fan Service of Fire Emblem Engage
SinceFire Emblem Engagewas only just announced, information is sparse on the specifics of how it will handle fan service, but from the trailer one can already see the game is using its history better thanWarriorsdid. The story itself isn’t winning any awards for creativity - dark mages resurrecting evil dragons has been repeated nearly a dozen times acrossFire Emblemhistory, and is also almost identical to the lukewarm plot ofFire Emblem Warriors.Engageeven has a sub-plot of fighting alongside heroes from other games.
However,Fire Emblem Engageseems to be doing things differentlythanWarriors. Rather than having tons of characters from a few games,Fire Emblem Engagechooses one representative from each majorFire Emblemtitle, sans remakes and one direct sequel. With 12 Emblem heroes confirmed to appear,Fire Emblem Engagehas almost a third of the heroesFire Emblem Warriorshad, but it casts a wide net to include a character from every game, including titles that haven’t seen international releases.
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Ultimately, this method is better.Fire Emblem Engage’ssystem allowsallFire Emblemgames to get more equal representationby avoiding the imbalance inWarriors’roster. Though the Emblem heroes seem to be characters all their own, the smaller, hand-picked cast will also allow theFire Emblem Engageoriginal characters to shine more than those found inWarriors, who were more of a narrative framework to explain away the setting.
What Fire Emblem Warriors Could Have Been
Fire Emblem Warriorswas supposed to be theultimateFire Emblemfan servicegame, but it ended up playing things safe by focusing mostly on the two most recentFire Emblemtitles at the time. The game was a success, but one has to wonder what heights it could have reached if Intelligent Systems hadn’t played it safe by relying on characters that newer fans would recognize.
IfFire Emblem Warriorshad cast its net as wide asFire Emblem Engageseems to, players could have had a truly amazing musou game on their hands. Even if it had kept the same general number of playable characters, it could have pulled between three and five characters from eachFire Emblemsetting. The ability to play as characters like Ephraim, Eirika, Micaiah, or Hector would have transformedFire Emblem Warriorsfrom afun romp withFire Emblem AwakeningandFatesto a love letter for the entire franchise.
Nevertheless, it is probably for the best thatFire Emblem Warriorsplayed it safe. As the second NintendoWarriorsgame, it needed to do well to ensure there would be more games in the future, and relying on recent, well-known characters was a sure way to do so - hence whyFire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopesfocused on a single setting. Through its conservative fan service,Fire Emblem Warriorsset the stage for Nintendo and Intelligent Systems to go deeper withFire Emblem Engage, and ensure moreFire Emblem Warriorsgames could be produced. Some day, perhaps players will get a truly epicFire Emblem Warriorsgame with over 80 characters like someDynasty Warriorstitles.
