For various reasons we now live in an era where developers breaking away from their parent companies to make similar-but-different pseudo-sequels to dormant, dead, or defiled game series is now a relatively commonplace occurrence, with Koji Igarashi's Castlevania successor Bloodstained being the latest to promise fans a slice of an old favourite all wrapped up in a modern bow. But the industry wasn't always so welcoming to experienced talent trying to take back their creations, and Fire Emblem creator Shouzou Kaga's 2001 Playstation RPG Tear Ring Saga had Nintendo in a bit of a flap.
So why exactly are we discussing a PlayStation RPG on Nintendo Life? Shouldn't this article be on our wonderful sister site, Push Square? Well, other than the format the game released on, it really couldn't be more classic Nintendo if it tried. Kaga's involvement offers an obvious connection, but there's also the fact that Fire Emblem artist Mayumi Hirota created the characters. In fact, Tear Ring Saga is so Fire Emblem that those with the skill and inclination can find graphics bearing the game's original title, Emblem Saga, hidden on the disc!
Did Nintendo sue? Of course it did! Did it work? Sort of. After several years of legal battling publisher Enterbrain was fined around 76 million Yen (approximately £400,000 GBP / $600,000 USD using current exchange rates) under the "Unfair Competition Prevention Act" due to the potential for confusion between Tear Ring Saga and the Fire Emblem series – but it was decided that the game wasn't actually infringing any Nintendo copyrights and could remain on sale.
With all that exciting legal shenanigans out of the way, now would probably be a good time to talk about the game itself, but as it follows the classic Fire Emblem formula so closely there's really not a great deal to explain. Breakable weapons, permanent character death, sidling up to NPCs in the middle of a battle for a quick bit of shopping… it's all in there, and it all works exactly as you'd expect it to.
But is it any good? Thankfully, yes. It feels a lot fairer than the notoriously brutal Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 – Kaga's last title for Nintendo and at the time of Tear Ring Saga's release, the most recent game in the series – but it's certainly not "dumbed down" either; Tear Ring Saga simply feels like a tough but not impossible challenge for anyone with a reasonable grasp of the genre and in an odd sort of way would make a good introduction to pre-GBA style Fire Emblem.
Tear Ring Saga is an interesting part of gaming history, a "what if" glimpse into an alternative future for the Fire Emblem series. But to leave it at that would be incredibly unfair: it's also a very good RPG in its own right and deserves praise on its own merits – and not just for taking on Nintendo at its own game and (mostly) winning.
A beautifully-animated sequel to Tear Ring Saga was released on the Playstation 2 in 2005, titled Berwick Saga. While this new entry featured many changes which moved the game away from the core Fire Emblem-style formula – the most immediately notable being hex-based maps – it is still clear to see where it draws its inspiration from. Sadly, while both games generally reviewed well, Berwick Saga turned out to be last game in this brave new series, as well as the last game from series developer Tirnanog.
Comments (45)
I don't get how Fire Emblem is niche. Of all the TRPG's that I've played, FE is probably the definitive TRPG ever!
If we get a good (fan) translation of this it'd be great to have another proper fire emblem game to play. I'm not liking most of the developments in the more recent FE games...
I was always curious to try this game out but sadly never got to finding a copy back in the day. It's a curious tale of defection from Nintendo.
@ArtWark this is true. FE is quite a popular Tactical RPG. Pity Langrisser/Warsong never made it out past the first game, since those games have reached Western obscurity.
C`Mon, they ripped FE and we talk about it?
...
Even Nintendo had to take legal actions about this people...
@tanasten "They" happens to be the original creator of the series.
@tanasten
It was made by the creator of Fire Emblem and the artist from Fire Emblem. I'm not sure you can say they "ripped" it. In fact, the legal action resulted in the game remaining on the shelves. Publisher issues aside this is just a guy making another variation of his own game design for a different platform.
Why wouldn't FE fans want to know about this and maybe even get their hands on it?
@Damo ninja!
@nostalgianinja Warsong is one of my all-time favourite games. A masterpiece. Such a shame we didn't get any of the others.
@linforcer There's a good/bad fan translation out there, and apparently some parts are so terrible it's pretty funny, so maybe you should go for that. I kinda want to some time in the future.
@Artwark It's not niche whatsoever in my opinion. Awakening sold over a million copies.
@Artwark Shining Force>Fire Emblem until my last breath!
(Damn you, SEGA.)
I've always thought that Nintendo should see if they can aquire the rights to Tear Ring Saga, and release it as an FE game. Probably as a remake.
@PorllM
That was across three regions, last I checked. Not quite obscure, but it still has a ways to go.
@Damo @aaronsullivan I know the history and background. These guys we're unknow people that formed at Nintendo when they were hired for R&D1 to work under Gumpei Yokoi. They learned working at Nintendo and progressed in the company. Kazuo Kaga was asigned as a assistant after doing maps on Famicon Wars, and he got the honor to be the producer on the second game (which probably is on of the worst Fire Emblem games)
He followed being the Producer of the series until Thraccia 776 and he left Nintendo, to fund a their own company and try to get money from the PlayStation userbase ripping Fire Emblem, which was not the result of Kazuo's work only, but many other people at Nintendo!
@Tsurii897 these cases are different. they going after games that are no more being developed. They're going after an style of game, not ripping the original game like Tear Ring Saga did. Even the original name Emblem Saga was a clear rip off.
In regards too developers creating spiritual successors all the time, it's the publishers fault for ignoring their fan bases in favor of having their own generic shooter to compete with HALO and Call Of Duty.
I should also point out that these markets didn't die out the publishers just ignored them and wondered why nobody ever bothered buying their generic shooters.
Ah, good old TRS. I had some fun with this a while back, but I stopped once the horrid translation reared its ugly head. Fortunately, the translation team has picked up an editor who is working on improving the quality of the translation, so we should hopefully see a release of that sometime soon-ish!
Also, if anyone here has played and like TRS or Berwick Saga, you may be excited to hear that Kaga is currently working on a doujin game using SRPG Studio. So, that's exciting.
Well, does it have a strong and complex difficult gameplay experience? Cuz if it was as strong as that before Awakening, I'll play it. Re-kick start it.
To be honest I kinda want to play this game but I guess I'll need to either get a decent translation patch or learn how to speak, write and read in Japanese.
@CreativeWelshman
You could probably play a bit of it and be fine. The translation doesn't start to really get bad until after the first switch.
There we go. Nintendo has committed terrible actions against people lives. Seriously the game looks completely different from Fire-Emble. If not it is an better version of that game all together.
What is sad is how this guy is also probably responsible for "FEDA:Emble Of Justice", or even the "Shining Series". Those games just mix together somehow. That is my opinion.
This is not the first time with this problem. Kirby ( a videogame not by Nintendo ) being the original 3 Kirby games ( Kirby 1-2-3 ) all are the product of an employee ( you know his name ) and Nintendo wanted to make an new Kirby game ( for the NES ) and have it sell like the GB game. HOWEVER under-contract KIRBY was the property of this employee and he would not and could not make another Kirby game in that fashion. That is why Kirby-1-2-3 all look different while every other Kirby game is the same thing since the orginal NES and SNES game.
I just knew something like this would happen eventually. Nintendo sues former employee who created Fire-Emble the moment he decided to go away and make an RPG with similar Turn-based....... That sucks.
Just goes to show you that Nintendo is not all that great
@PorllM - It had to. Or FE would die out. So don't use Awakening as an excuse.
Rance, is that you?
@KO-Cub That's irrelevant. It had to and it did. It can no longer be considered niche.
I wouldn't mind trying out Tear Ring Saga. It's been a little while since I played the PS3, but I know it has PS1 import games on there. It would be cool if this game was on there.
@PorllM - So an easy, Waifu sim is the way to go, huh?
@KO-Cub Where did you get that? I said Fire Emblem is no longer really a niche series since Awakening sold very well. Did I suggest anything about Awakening being the best or that future games should be inspired by it? I prefer the older games so I'm not sure where you pulled that from.
FE's best seller of all time is but a grain of sand compare to actual mainstream titles. FE is a niche series that nearly ran itself to extinction with bad sales. Awakening may have brought it into the light but it's not out of the niche area, not by a longshot.
Great game and very true to the FE formula unlike the recent two games. I wonder if Kaga-san is saddened by the ultra-simplified path that the series unfortunately had to take. Hopefully his new free SRPG retains most of the elements of a true FE game. Would be funny if it ended up being a better FE game than IF.
@KO-Cub
Unfortunately, that seems to be the case. Fire Emblem as it was is dead. The games using the name now are really a new franchise entirely.
@Butt apparently yes it is. The person who made Kirby ( and that Star game that resembles Kirby ) and when he did it as humanly as possible had rights on the production and value of the game.
Basically all unofficial games are products of Nintendo. While only 1-2-3 are the official Story, and theme of Kirby. In fact Kirby 64 was and should have been called 4 but because of production issues ( or the fact the game was not good enough to be called an four ) it was most likely assume the game was the final/final for the series ( at least for the official series ).
Note you said 1-2-3-64. All those Kirby games had the original creator ( HAL-Labs founder ) on board. With K64 he did not want to miss out on the chance to make HIS game in 3d. That is why K64 is not like Adventure/Deluxe or anything else released afterwards.
I don't know but I think some other Kirby games he was apart of. I am not too sure about Mirror or "Return to Dreamland". As the games are never called "Dreamland in which he is apart of.
But yes Kirby is not Nintendo's property stand-alone but the property of the creator along with characters and such.
Speaking of sick mindedness and attitudes you have understand the respect between employers within companies. Especially people who make series.
Take Resident Evil, Street Fighter, and Megaman. All of these things are absorbed into Capcom. Because of that the original creators are not getting the credit, or funds ( royalties ) they deserve but the company itself.
i heard about this game in "did you know gaming in a few month /weeks(i don't know when but i do know i did watched it"
@tanasten
Interesting history I didn't know about, but why is he considered the creator of Fire Emblem? Seems to be the go to guy to give credit to from where I've looked.
Also, all work is collaborative and it's hard to draw lines, but this is a guy making the type of game he knows how with different story, characters, IP. It was borderline and having the same artist made it look the same in some ways, hence the lawsuit, but I really do see some horrible knock-off situation here at all. He's just using his skills to make a type of game he's good at.
Just don't see what invalidates the game from a consumer perspective or a business one really.
@RegalSin Are you aware that Keiji Inafune isn't really the creator of Mega Man? He designed the character, but it's not as if he produced or directed the game. He was hired to work on the Mega Man team when the higher brass decided they wanted to make a platformer.
Interesting game, I think I may have heard about this on GameSack or something.
@dudujencarelli
Kenji orginally made another ill-famous game before MM series all together. Before he had official made the leap from Capcom, the MMX4 or MMX5 was his last game. After/Before that the only games he contributed to was MMLegends, and MMZero ( the real final chapter of Megaman series ). The only reason why ZX even exsist was because blah blah Nintendo new console, and we should support it, blah blah. Magaman Network was also his brainstorming, which he made for his
children.
Kenji made Megaman from the ground up and Capcom was going to abandon the product all together. He did not only make the characters, but HE WAS THE ONLY ONE LEFT ON THE TEAM, when capcom needed resources as they were going to can the project together.
To be more better and understanding, of his nature. The entire game works of Megaman could be traced back to Kenji deciding on working in construction if his career had fail.
As a die hard FE fan for the longest time, this is taboo to talk about among the community....well from what I've seen anyway..
I feel Deja vu, like I've read an article like this on this site before 0_0
Maybe I'm imagining it =s
edit:
I must've just read the story somewhere else before.
@PorllM
Actually, Awakening has now almost reached TWO million copies. Digital included of course.
@KO-Cub
Who doesn't like a good waifu SIM? And I would hardly call Awakening easy. Well, unless you play on Normal- even then you'll lose a character here and there. Hard difficulty is more brutal than any game since the SNES era. I found myself being pushed to the limit by the 5th mission on hard mode, yet I'm 50 hours into Binding Blade and FE7, a good 20+ hours into Shadow Dragon and roughly 15 into Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn, and haven't found myself in a bind yet.
Just because the game included a casual mode and a few changes doesn't mean it was a pushover.
@Sakura_Moonlight2421
Define community. Among most FE fans I know the "Saga" games are held in high regard...if they know about them, at least. I certainly haven't seen much hostility towards them.
@JaxonH
On what difficulties? Awakening Hard Mode is often considered not that difficult so I'd be interested to see what you're comparing it against.
@JaxonH - And I shouldn't be a pushover myself, but Veterans are worried where the series is going.
@shinpichu
I've heard that before too, but hard mode is nothing to sneeze at. It's not a huge jump over Normal, but it's enough to do the trick.
@KO-Cub
Understood. But "veterans" aren't the only ones who play the game. And anyone who's played a Fire Emblem game before can be considered a veteran anyways. I look at all the older games, and while I DO love them, they're great, they're so formulaic and predictable. The strategy is almost too mathematical, know what I mean? An axe will almost always miss against a sword. Every time. Etc etc... that type of stuff.
I think gaming has just evolved is all, and games have to advance too. I do think there are some legitimate concerns- but none of them came from Awakening. I'm more thinking the unlimited use of weapons in the upcoming FE14. Then again, "veterans" like my brother are head over heels for that change. Says it was pointless because you'd just buy more anyways.
So Idk. Would I like to see the series lean more along the lines of where Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn was going? Ya. Sure would. But at the same time, I really enjoyed Awakening, so I think I've gotten to a point where I realize I trust the developers to make a good game. No matter what changes or direction they see fit to take.
@JaxonH - Amen, Amen. Awakening was good, but it did introduce worrying things. Overpowered Skills and Units stats, Marriage System, removal of Heavy inside mechanics (Like Light Tomes, Magic Advantage Triangle, Weapon Weight, etc). Basically, fusing all the Fire Emblem games didn't go down as I imagined.
It's the complexity and math that made Fire Emblem great. We're 'ok' with some change as long as they're harmless as a whole. And yeah, the only thing working with Weapon Complexity in Awakening was the Equipment Endurance. It creates item management, and because I heard Blk. Kingdom was going to be harder and earn less gold, it would enhance management and make you really focus on the core of the Fire Emblem aspect. But if Weapons aren't going to have a whole lot to back them, then you might as well remove the Endurance.
And Axe never hit's Sword for good reasons. 1 being Sword > Axe, so bonuses are reduced and Axe's are just inaccurate yet powerful. It's just the thing about adaptability.
Huh... You learn something everyday.
@RegalSin
Actually, no it isn't. Sakurai was with HAL until Aug 5, 2003 when he quite after he had criticized Nintendo for the handling of Air Ride. The thing is though, the only games he personally directed after Adventure were Dreamland, Super Star, Nightmare in Dreamland, Amazing Mirror, and of course Air Ride. He also voiced King Dedede in Kirby 64.
It wouldn't be an IP issue, it would be Sakurai feeling dissatisfied working on sequel after sequel, which he's well known for.
You're right about Kirby not being solely Nintendo's, but not because of Sakuria. Kirby is partly owned by HAL, which Sakuria of course worked for as did Iwata at the time. Although, technicaly HAL is a subsidiary of Nintendo.
Also, the creator and developers do get credit for their work, there's this thing in the back of the manual and at the end of the game called "credits". If they didn't receive credit they wouldn't have such a following now would they? What they don't have is legal rights to what they've created while on the clock (and in many cases, while employed).
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