Fire Emblem Fates Third Path And New HOME Theme Launch In Japan

No, no this is not a surprise scenario... Because (spoiler) the third/neutral path, now known as Invisible Kingdom, is the only true canon story route. The Conquest and Birthright routes both end with a temporal warp back to the beginning of the game timeline, the twist at the end is that both of those stories are false, they are not canon. They lead you towards paying extra for the true route and ending; if you don't, you're stuck with a cliffhanger. Nintendo got greedy. The two opposing paths reside together on a single game card in the special edition, probably an 8GB card. (A download code for Invisible Kingdom is included.)

We will find out for sure how much data is on the card when the modding community gets their hands on the game. What is certain is that there was no need to market the two opposing paths separately as "versions." Nintendo should have sold the two paths together on one $50 game card, while providing a free download code for the third path as a reward to all new copy buyers on their eShop account. (For used copies, the third path could be downloaded separately for $15.)

@PlywoodStick In that case, microtransaction heavy Fire Emblem on smartphones seem ever increasingly likely.

I just hope we get the special edition westward. I'll be buying all three themes on payday though.

I'm not particularly happy this FE gen. It's so greedy and it's just a mess. FE:A be like. "We created classic mode and made sure it doesn't miss any story or anything." But Fates... pfft. Wow. Yeah, Birthright takes top dollar, especially since, I heard, that Conquest Kills off characters.

@KO-Cub Your 2nd spoiler tag should be [/spoiler]

Its so strange to have three versions of FE, just doesn't seem like the franchise to do this with.

Funny how there are two versions and yet Best Buy has a pre-order for only one and it's priced $49.99 CAD. I won't be happy if both versions cost $49.99 each. If they do, I'll only be getting Conquest, thanks. Having too much choice is a curse, anyways, not a virtue.

@PlywoodStick It doesn't matter to Nintendo that both versions can fit onto one game card. It's the gimmick.

Ah, content that was ready on release day but held back and then put up for sale. Nintendo are so different to other companies xD

@C-Olimar That's Ubisoft in a nutshell.

Yeah this is all a bit crummy on Nintendo's part.

@PlywoodStick Nintendo isn't greedy.

They wanted it to be separate versions to make it more accessible to those new and old to FE. Those familiar to FE can go to conquest whereas the others can go to Birthright.

@Grumblevolcano That is something I'm seriously worried about if they do this the wrong way.

@Artwark - No Nintendo isn't greedy. Intelligent Systems is. Birthright for newcomers and Conquest for older fans is what the Devs wanted, but it's not what they got.

Great now I'm scared of spoilers (Thanks to those who covered theirs up) because knowing the internet I'll just be playing a game or reading an article completely unrelated and then some random person will post "Remember that time when the main character stabs himself to save the rainbow squid" and I will be sad.

You know, a copy of this was out in the wild for about a week already, I've been playing it. (yes, the third route). Some hacker literally just downloaded it off of Nintendo's server.

Could've put all of this in one game...

@Artwark Both of which could have resided on the same card. Just put a note in-game that Birthright is more comfortable, and Conquest is more challenging. There's no need to put them on different cards, there's no point other than money.

@ollietaro It's a gimmick to separate two parts of the same game to make more money? A business tactic, yes, a gimmick, maybe if you're a mobile game company. Is Nintendo a mobile game company now?

Each route has about the same total content of Awakening, so really, we get three different Fire Emblems in 2015.

i bet that the third path will release as a physical copies later this year in japan like most of the pokemon main series game gen 1,2,3,4,5 (pokemon B2/W2 set in 2 year after the event of pokemon B/W but i have to put gen 5 in case anyone complain about gen 5 have 4 version [but either way everyone will complain]) and IE 3 Lighting Bolt /Bomb Blast /Team Ogre Attack

@DEAD also i do like the third menu theme but all three FE:Fate theme are really amazing (in term of design for all 3 theme but the ost for theme 3)

I'm actually really excited for these games. I'm probably going to buy all of them.

@PlywoodStick

Who cares.

It's more than worth it and it's a great game. People so wrapped up in catching Nintendo in a "gotchya" situation, just play the games and stop counting megabytes.

New Super Luigi U can fit on a disc with NSMBU, but that doesn't mean people don't want to own it as a standalone release. Pokemon differs so little it would be nothing to combine versions, but it's the flavor of the release people like. Fire Emblem has two paths and people like having 2 releases for it. I know I do anyways.

@DEAD
spoiler alert
also i heard that the third path is not recommend for people who didn't played/finished the hoshido and/or nohr path

@Monado_III Thank you. Everyone keeps acting like its only a map or two difference. we are talking awakening sized content...three times. No that should not be free. I wonder if Nintendo would have endured less grumbling if they'd ship the games months apart.

@DEAD Where did you here that?

@Aromaiden
that video in the link below(spoiler you made your decision in chapter 6 )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVgtp9pETzg
in the description

@Aromaiden plese note: that person is using a fan-made patch for the game for English translation from the serenesforest forums

@DEAD Okay, I see now, thank you.

Although It is only a recommendation. It's basically the same thing of them asking a player to play the other side after they played Nohr or Hoshido, so they can see both sides to the story. It's not required.

@Aromaiden that's true!

It is not hard to see why the Fire Emblem franchise turned around with Awakening. The DS entries were not much of an improvement from GBA in terms of presentation. With Awakening the series took a huge step upward in terms of graphics, cut scenes and the ability to tell an engrossing story. gameplay is always the most important factor, but presentation is a close second.

@ollietaro
At least in Japan, if you buy one version of the game (say, Conquest) you can buy the other at discounted price. Hopefully that will carry over to the wset, because if not, I'll only get Conquest.

@PlywoodStick @KO-Cub You do realize that the 3DS isn't really that powerful enough to handle such data right? Smash can't support circle pad pro so the additional features can only be used on the new 3ds.

If they made both in one, it would have a LOT of space to store and that means like 16 GB space we are talking about here. This could probably mean that they would have to make it as a new 3ds exclusive and that could be a real bad thing.

Also, if you observe in Iwata asks, they never sounded like they were greedy or anything. If anything, Intelligent systems is basically owned by Nintendo and plays by Nintendo's rules. If there is the issue of the game not having two in one, Nintendo will blame Intelligent Systems for that which would force them to produce both games in one cart.

Yes, I too want both in one but since this isn't revealed yet in the west, we don't know for sure how its going to end up. Perhaps that's the reason why its taking them a year to localize it to remove some controversies and such.

I don't think its for money that Nintendo purposefully did this as I feel that there is some logic behind all of this. If both were in one, they would have to increase the game's price and while I would be fine with that, I'm sure others won't.

Yeah, this is the kind of thing we bash EA and Capcom for... Game looks great and I'll most likely pick it up at some point (hopefully at a discount price) but this model is NOT acceptable, and definitely not equivalent to the small, tradeable changes in Pokemon games

@Haxonberik What's wrong with them? :/

@JaxonH I'm part of the DRM-free PC gaming crowd, so I can get hyper-vigilant about things like this. Counting bytes, assessing presentation models, and weighing varying values are just an everyday convention in the DRM-free community. Our standards are different from the conventional market, so it might come off as haughty, but it's well intentioned.

@PlywoodStick
No worries- to each their own. I'm part of the "just play games" community. So I'm always encouraging people to just play the games and have fun with it

@Haxonberik

It's exactly for that reason that this is an acceptable model. Look we bash EA because every game they release comes with $60-$80 of downloadable content and has micro transactions.

This game is offering a full game on both sides, each game offering an equivalent amount of content to Awakening- which was praised for it's extraordinarily excessive amount of content. The games are completely different after the first what, 5 chapters? Different characters, different maps, different strategies needed to win. That's fair game in my book.

Not only am I not upset about it, i'm excited for it. And it's not prejudice or bias because I like a lot of EA's games too. The reason it doesn't bother me is because it doesn't feel wrong- people just look for any reason nowadays to say everything is wrong. There are instances where games are legitimately charging too much for extra content and are legitimately shortchanging players. But not every game that offers more than one games worth of content is guilty of this. He is if you look at this objectively there really are 2 full games on offer.

It's peoples prejudice and conditioning that's the problem here. Particularly Nintendo gamers. I find Sony and Microsoft gamers to be much more reasonable when it comes to extra content. Tendo gamers think anything different then the status quo is ripping them off.

If this is wrong then we're basically telling developers no- you can't be creative. You can't do things differently. Have an awesome idea about releasing two separate games as branching paths in one overarching storyline? Too bad. We won't allow it.

And that's exactly the sort of message I don't want to send to developers. As long as each game is worth its value then there's not a problem.

@Artwark Yes, there are some... AHEM... Familial and age related controversies to sort out in the game... Which will probably be censored.

In any case, this title is perhaps the most popular one since the GBA titles, so it's nice to see that Intelligent Systems hasn't lost their touch, and Nintendo is not letting Fire Emblem fall into obscurity.

@JaxonH @Aromaiden I guess the main problem I have with it was the way it was advertised. They come in guns blazing telling us the new FE will be "all about important choices" to later tell us much more quietly the decision is in which version you buy and how much money you're willing to pay. In practice, it's probably not as bad as, say, MK X's $30 4 character pack, but it seems like the price structure has been skipped on purpose, which is annoying considering how much more complicated than the usual it is. And the fact that it is good content for its money doesn't take away that they locked it only to sell it separately. It's still the same team working on many of the same assets, so it's not really making two games by any stretch.

Edit: btw don't take this the wrong way, when I have the game on my hands I'll make sure to put this aside and enjoy it for what it is regardless of price, I wouldn't let such things detract from my experience but I still feel like giving my honest opinion on it.

@dadajo SHHH I haven't finished the Splatoon single player yet and now you have gone and ruined the ending ;(

I like the concept of having the choices and I love having 3 full games of FE but I feel like to have the choice differ enough they may have been forced into separating the games or charging for a DLC of the other campaign for financial reasons. Delivering double the content of awakenings will cost a lot in development time I am sure.

You know charging half price for a full games worth of DLC isn't that bad. I don't see why it's such a big deal. Heck the length of each Fates path is as long as Awakening after all of it's dlc.

@RatKing64 You know, the Tellius games had better graphics (480p but had an older anime style which doesn't appeal to all) cutscenes (IMO), but definitely better story (Awakening's SUCKED).

@Monado_III Well of course it has better graphics. It's on a home console, after all.

My only hope is that a version releases with all three paths in one pack or cartridge

I don't see the fuss. I just preordered it on amazon and you get both for £40.

@Haxonberik saying that two games that are made by the same developers are practically the same is like saying earthbound and the legend of zelda are the exact same game even though they are nothing alike. yes it may feature the same gameplay mechanics but thats how video game franchises work.

i think everyone who says nintendo got greedy selling two fire emblem games are the actual greedy people here. Look, nintendo spent an extremely long time producing each game with their own characters, maps, supports, children, enemies, differing classes the units can be promoted to, and different cut scenes. these are two different games and should be treated as such. So shut up because you don't understand how people can release two games in a series at once unless it has almost no deviations. "cough"pokemon"cough"