It's been quite a busy month for Nintendo, with the Switch presentation that happened a little over a week ago, followed by a Fire Emblem focused direct a week later, and one of the surprised they had on it was the announcement of a new Fire Emblem game for the Switch. Unfortunately, nothing was shown, as it was likely too early to do so, but it got me thinking: What sort of features and ideas should the next game have? So I thought it'd be a cool idea to post fans' hopes, ideas, and suggestions for the next game. It would be interesting to see what worked, what didn't, what past features are missed, new ideas for the game, etc. So, I'll list some of mine:
- A single focused epic adventure: More directed towards Fire Emblem Fates. While I enjoyed the idea of a game being split into different 'what if' scenarios, it did make the game feel a bit on a small scale, compared to games like Path of Radiance, Radiant Dawn, and Fire Emblem (7). I miss playing a FE game where you take part of a huge world with many different active nations with a crisis happening on a grand level. Fates and Awakening I feel was lacking somewhat with this, as their worlds felt small to me, but I hope they go back to something like Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn.
- The return of light magic: This is a pretty minor thing I feel, but something that's been omitted from FE games and I miss it. It felt like a good balance with dark magic, and there were classes that focused on light magic, such as monks and priests. Perhaps it could be expanded to have new classes added, such as soldiers who use swords and light magic. With dark magic only being around with standard magic, it feels unbalanced, and it is largely missing from Fates, with nosferatu being the only dark spell, as if light and dark magic are just slowly fading away. I hope the next FE Switch game can see a return of this weapon type.
- Multiple lord units: Among the different games, one of my favorites is Fire Emblem 7, the 1st game to release in the west, and one of the reasons were different main characters, Eliwood, Hector, and Lyn, who were all special lord characters with different styles and weapons, and I really liked that. Unfortunately, that feature was slowly dropped in later games, focusing on at most 2 characters, and main one character had a unique class. So I'm hoping the next game can have something similar to that of FE7.
- Better avatar customization options: One of the cool features of the new games was being able to make your own unit and give you the feel of being part of the adventure, but an issue I had, more so with Fates, was that the different options for your unit was somewhat lacking. I couldn't make a character that quite felt like me, and some options just felt poor, like the hair options for the male unit. It was as if the artist just drew up different hair styles without thinking if they were fitting or relateable (even worse for the girls. Who thought wild afro hair was a good idea...?). You could only pick between a big or small build, rather than having more varying sizes for the character. I understand that making many different styles for hairs, eyes, lips and face would be a lot of work, but I hope they at least make more natural feeling features for next time. Maybe they can have different clothing options as well, or start off as a specific class or villager class. Something that makes 'My Unit' feel like... well, my unit!
Uncertain feature - Marriage and child units: Now this one, I feel a little iffy on. This was one of the features I really liked in Awakening. I enjoyed picking a unit I liked, marrying them, and getting kids who could also fight in the battlefield. From a story perspective, it also fit and worked out. Plus, I found the child units to be great. In Fates however, I don't really like it, mostly because it doesn't make sense. The story has nothing to do with time travel, and the way the game tries to justify it doesn't work. It was likely added in because it was very popular in the previous game. I'm okay if it returns in the Switch game, but ONLY IF IT MAKES SENSE. It could be another time travel plot, or a time skip, but I hope it's just not shoe horned in again.
So... yeah, those are some of my hypes and suggestions for the next Fire Emblem game. Fire Emblem fans, what are your hopes, ideas and suggestions? O:
Dance my pretties!
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