It may not be coming to the West until 2016, but Fire Emblem If is hard to ignore as a result of its rapidly approaching release in Japan. With two distinct versions - and a third arc available via download - it's a title ambitious in scope, expanding upon the excellent Fire Emblem: Awakening.

Today's Japanese Nintendo Direct broadcast featured the title, unsurprisingly, and fleshed out a handful of new details. For one thing, it confirmed that the four existing Fire Emblem-themed Super Smash Bros. amiibo would be supported - Lucina, Robin, Marth and Ike can all be summoned into the game.

Another key feature that was revealed relates to a game segment seemingly called 'My Castle'. Adopting sprite-based top-down visuals as seen in Awakening, this is a part of the overworld with free movement. An extended video - below - demonstrates how you can manage your own town by building various stores and resources, managing different aspects and even having control over its design. There also appear to be invasions that can threaten your town, which you naturally need to fight off, or vice-versa (this seems to be StreetPass functionality). This whole section of the game seems ideally suited to introducing and getting to know a broad cast, and will surely add a great deal of extra gameplay to the overall experience.

It's a good while before we'll see this in the West, of course, but do you like the look of this new approach in Fire Emblem If?