Nintendo Just Launched Two Special Fire Emblem Game Variants On Switch In Japan

There’s tons of translated versions of FE1 out there on the internet so I really don’t know why Nintendo can’t be bothered giving it an official English release through Switch Online. It would at least add value to the service if more unique games were added or newly translated.

I might be up for this. I was thinking about setting up a Japanese account.
Is Geneology of the Holy War and Thracia 776 on the SNES Online yet? It might be worth keeping an eye out for those titles too, even if they aren't on there yet.

That artwork kills me a little bit inside, what a complete bastardization of the original art.
E: Thank you for fixing it, appreciate it.

As for those releases... What's the point?

I might mess with this at some point. I have the account.

@RupeeClock That would use up the player's saves, and in FE specially they're pretty useful to explore different routes if you find yourself in a crossroads.

@Expa0

Are you talking about the header image? That's promotional material from Dragalia Lost, I believe. Marth is the only OG Fire Emblem character in that picture.

Wish they would translate the original game(s). I’d pay good money for a Fire Emblem NES-SNES Collection in English.

You don't need to create a second account, you can change your main account to japanese (as long as you have no money on it), download the Famicom App (and Super Famicom while you're at it) to your Switch, change it back, and the App will remain there and update like normal.
I even bought a japanese game once, and that way it's still tied to my main account.

Genuine question:

Why does everyone suggest making a secondary account for different regional purchases (requiring a secondary email account) when you can just change the region of your main account via Nintendo Account on any phone or desktop browser without any repurcussions from switching back and forth?

This also keeps all your international purchases tied to one account if you were to transfer to a new system at some point down the line

@PcTV you just beat me to it.

This should be the preferable way

@nessisonett Rather odd how Nintendo seemingly helped translate Trials of Mana, but no such treatment for Mother 3 or half the FE games.

@PcTV It’s a real shame, it just drives more people to piracy. I mean let’s be real, plenty of Westerners have played Mother 3 and the classic FE games but how many paid for them? I know I didn’t.

@ryancraddock
You don't lose your funds. The site just doesn't allow you to change regions if you have funds remaining

@Coach_A
I've had an option to abandon my balance, all ~£0.007 of it at the time.
It seems both 'you can abandon your balance' and 'you can't change as you have balance' happen to people.

Most 'You can't change...' reports I've seen have been about trying to switch back from US, so maybe that's just a US thing?

Okay, switching regions to access local releases is all well and good, but how playable are these without English dialogue?

I’ll stick with the DS remake for now.

Meanwhile, when was the last time NES and SNES games were released in the western service?

@nessisonett they can’t just legally grab any of those translations and use them. If they want to own the copyright, and not be liable for using someone else’s work, they need to pay up for their own translation, something they might not feel is worth the investment at this time.

@nessisonett whether Nintendo finds the unofficial translations satisfactory enough to source them for a release is a different matter. Besides, I'm pretty sure the existence of Shadow Dragon in the west has long nullified the previous incarnations of the game getting a release. Japan got the Famicom original due to its nostalgic value.

It's more of a bummer that New Mystery of the Emblem never made it westward.

@RazumikhinPG um... almost literally two months ago?

would it KILL Nintendo to give us Fire Emblem in the West? This would actually be a reason to use the S/NES service that I never open

@Tharsman @nhSnork While I’m not saying they should just copy a fan translation, it shows that if fans can do it in their spare time for free, a company with thousands of employees could do it no problem. Besides, SEGA hired an extremely talented bunch to work on Mania instead of just shutting down their fan projects and ignoring them. Plenty of indie devs started out in ROM hacks and translations.

Well I had already play Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragons on DS and did not like it so I'm not going to bother playing its demake original.

Poor Marth being covered by the Special logo.

@Mando44646 because that will make the costumers happy. And Nintendo don't care about our happiness, only the best way to milking us...

I do wish there was a way to put the SP games in a separate folder or like sub it under the main game. It adds to the clutter. I throw them at the bottom for now.

And I have both because I changed my region, grabbed Famicom, then changed back. Then did the same thing for Super Famicom when it was released. Was pretty easy and now they're tied to my same account.

Worth asking, is Europe or anywhere else worth swapping to to grab or is it same as US?

@RupeeClock Because this way they can call 10 games 30 games

@nessisonett that's what I referred to by "sourcing", and I doubt Nintendo is inherently allergic to such practices after taking entire indie projects like SnipperClips under their wing. But again, it's an expense, and the existence of Shadow Dragon most likely renders this expense redundant in Nintendo's eyes, just like the existence of Echoes most likely means they will never budget a localization of the original Gaiden. Add to the fact that even Shadow Dragon, for all its added polish, underwhelmed some in its relative simplicity after their exposure to the franchise via much later entries like The Blazing Sword and Path of Radiance, and there's only so much appeal Nintendo may expect among western gamers for the OG game that doesn't even have a visible movement grid, let alone other eventually franchise-synonymous evolutions like the weapon triangle. Like I said, the nostalgic value in Japan may well be the reason it ever landed in any region's CGC at all.

Cool! Been playing through this anyway. I'll have to check it out!

@AlexanderDaniels good to know, thanks

I wouldn't mind giving the original a spin at some point in the future, but I've played Shadow Dragon, the remake of this game. It's decent, but a little barebones and generic when it comes to the plot.

@nessisonett Sin & Punishment was given a new lease on life when Nintendo "localized" it on the Wii's N64 VC, which simply allowed the US (and maybe Europe) to download the Japanese game. S&P2 on the Wii likely would not have existed if the first game wasn't rereleased.

Nintendo needs to do more things like this.

@nessisonett Its just not worth it. Fire Emblem (NES), is probably one of the roughest versions of the game. And its been remade (to a disgustingly faithful amount; to its detriment.) as Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon (DS). To just translate the game and release it to the NES app for a very small profit would probably not even cover the translation and bug fixing costs... like why? And translating a NES ROM itself is not as easy as it sounds.

It makes more sense if they were to port the game as a completion bonus to a later game. Maybe, if they ever remake Shadow Dragon they might do it as a toss in. But, on its own the question is just... why? Like I'm a hardcore FE fan and even I have to ask where the demand is to do it. I'd rather just play Shadow Dragon, or the other remakes like New Mystery of the Emblem or Echos. Like only the most hardcore of hardcore would even play it through to completion. Now if it was Genealogy of the Holy War... NOW WE'RE TALKING!!!!

@Coach_A Beyond potentially losing your eShop balance, for people who want to check the Japanese eShop weekly (or more often) and don't want to go through the hassle of constantly changing their region, it's much more convenient in the long run. And the argument that all your purchases remain on the same account is pretty meaningless. What difference does it make if you have a few Japanese games on a different account? You can still play them just the same on your main account with no issues.

@Wexter It's also worth noting that the number of fan translations available means nothing. Nintendo isn't just going to scoop one up and use it. So that's another reason why it's a bad idea.

@Deltath not if you plan on transfering just your main account to a new console

@Coach_A Except there's no logical reason not to transfer both if you have both. And you're literally saying don't even make one, so it's not like you're planning to leave it behind. It takes less time to load the second account to a new Switch than it does to change your region on one of your accounts and transferring only requires you to do it once. Not every time you want to go back to the other region's shop.

@Deltath I'm not "literally" saying anything you've insinuated.

I may try the final boss fight one but I’m just slowly working on this game.

Oooh nice more Fire Emblem a.k.a Nintendo's weird and annoying obsession woop dee doo