noname2200 said:
Had it been just one game it would have dwarfed any previous version in terms of content though: you'd be paying roughly $0.50 per unique map, for example, where I believe the previous lowest was around $0.85. I see where you're coming from, mind you, but I sincerely doubt Fates would have been as large if it had been just one game: they almost certainly would have roughly halved the available content. |
Noname is right, and there's another reason why it's very unlikely for Intelligent Systems to make a game of Fates' size as a single game. They did it once before, and that was very nearly the end of the franchise.
Outside of FE7, every Fire Emblem game from Thracia 776 (FE5) to Path of Radiance (FE9) had had main campaigns of roughly 25 maps. (FE7's was 31). Then, Radiant Dawn was 42 maps long, and by far the grandest game in the franchise.
And it sold horribly. It also reviewed quite poorly.
Where can you take the series from there? As a niche series, you can't "one-up" the scale and make something grander, because it simply was not financially viable to make a Fire Emblem larger than Radiant Dawn. On the other hand, if you make a smaller game, then you're releasing a Fire Emblem game that's a smaller version of a game nobody bought, and that reviewed poorly. That's not really a good option either.
Intelligent Systems went with the latter, by making two cheap remakes, before partly having to reinvent the series with Awakening as a final chance for the series.
Awakening performed extremely well, but was also a game the size of Radiant Dawn. If they made all versions of Fates together, that would be an even larger game. Imagine now, that this massive Fates failed to live up to Awakening's sales and reception.
They'd then have set a precedent of games being 50 and 60 (ish) maps large - more than twice than what was the precedent 10 years ago. They couldn't after those two games make a smaller, 30-map game, without it being looked at as ridiculously small. Furthermore, since Fates would have been considered inferior to Awakening, the general opinion would be of Fire Emblem as a series in decline - first it sells less, and then it's downscaled.
From my perspective, Intelligent Systems only had two options after Radiant Dawn and Awakening.
1) Downscale the size of the games now, back to a FE7-size game
2) Forever make massive games and hope that the popularity remains.
I considered #1 to be the most likely, because #2 would be more risky, and quite contrary to how Intelligent Systems usually makes games.
Instead, they went with a third route, that seems to be better. They're making a larger game, but it's also split up and more expensive. It's thus possible for the next game in the series to be smaller FE7-size game, and thus be a "return to normal size" game, rather than being a small version of the old game.
I don't see the Fates model as a cash crab in any sense, but rather the best and easiest way for them to make a large-scale Fire Emblem without potentially jeopardising the future of the franchise.
