Fire Emblem will be Getting an Art Book for its 25th Anniversary

OH COME ON NOW.

Time to brush up your Japanese guys

Considering that it's not the 25th in the West, I don't think we'll be getting this or the symphony. Hopefully, we will when the time finally comes!

Time to import!

The symphony is unlikely over here, but the series is a cult favourite of gamers in the west.
I believe that this is where crowd funding would become useful: niche products like this could promise an English translation once enough pre-orders are reached. If nothing else it will give a publisher the chance to gauge the popularity of an idea.

I'd love to have that, but alas, it just won't happen.

@MitchVogel

So? This year was not the 30th anniversary for Super Mario Bros. for Europe yet they got the 30th anniversary stuff.

@MitchVogel Or you can use Play-Asia even though it doesn't mean much.

These little exclusives is making me want to like learn Japanese just to even motivate myself to get them. But because It feels so difficult......I have no motivation to do so.

Udon, call up Nintendo and start formulating a localisation deal!

If they can release books of the Shining series, the majority of which never came out in the West, I can only see this not happening if Nintendo act stubbornly.

I'd rather have a 25th anniversary game collection for my Wii U.

With 14 entries (not counting Fire Emblem BS for the Super Famicom), it's evident that this book is not meant for western Fire Emblem fans. With the first 6 entries and Heroes of Light and Darkness on the DS having to of never made it to the west, only the hardcore fans of the series would have any sort of interest in this book (like myself).

I've got the Awakening art book, "Knights Of Iris" and its all in Japanean. I just look at the pictures, haha.

@FierceRagnar

I hope for the same thing.

Eliwood, Marth, and Sigurd? Those are... interesting choices.

@FierceRagnar You know...there's no reason to insult the more recent games.

Not surprising. The series isn't all that popular outside of Japan, so there is no point releasing it in a place where few would care for it.

I want this so bad. I'd import but I don't know any Japanese, but Fire Emblem is my favourite video game series ever.

@FierceRagnar Nothing wrong with the newer games. Awakening is awesome.

@IceAnt573
People like feeling superior that they have played prior entries. They're no longer the small elite club, so they make every effort to insult new entries (and those who enjoy them) to distinguish themselves.

The rational gamer says yes, I love the old entries, but the new ones are good too. Awakening wasn't THAT different mind you. Heroes of Light and Shadow started the casual mode, not Awakening. And the only real remaining difference was small changes like buffs from fighting along side each other.

I really just shake my head when people try to portray Awakening as crap. Obviously millions of others strongly disagree. And there's SO much it did better and improved upon.

The bottom line is they're ALL great games. The SNES trio, the GBA trio, the GC and Wii entries, the DS entries, and most certainly the 3DS entries. As for the NES entries, well, they were good for their day, but I just can't stand playing them. Too old and primitive. But I do respect them for laying the foundation.

Guess I'll have to import it,Just wish I could read Japanese.

I just pre-ordered it yesterday. Shame we'll most likely never get any official translations of this... If this was something like Pokemon or Zelda, it would have a higher chance getting translated...boo.

...I saw the thumbnail...and thought it meant coloring book...>.<

"When it comes to Fire Emblem, it seems that Japan has always been given favor over the West, and it appears that this trend will continue..."

DADGUMMIT, NINTENDO.

I mean I'm looking forward to Fates, but I still wish they'd localize some older games. Be nice to actually play them on Nintendo hardware.

As long as the Awakening and Fates content of this book accounts for less than 5 percent of the book I'll gladly buy this. I think I missed out on the 20th Anniversary book, though I did buy the Akaneia book that came out after.
Or was it the other way around? I forget...

@JaxonH
Meh. I mean Awakening was a good game. Great game in fact. It's just personally, I rank it rather low on the list of FEs I've played. So to me, it's a good game. It's just a bad Fire Emblem game.
I liked how they revived support conversations and made a huge effort to improve upon them by adding a new tier, making it possible to see every support conversation in a single playthrough (aside from S ranks), and giving each character more people to talk to. Unfortunately, the characters just weren't quite as likeable as past characters.
General gameplay took a nosedive for me. After the simplified nature of the remakes, I was hoping for a return to form with Awakening. Instead it was still the simple, archaic gameplay of the original Fire Emblem but with the added hand holding of Pair Up. Pair Up is a cool concept and all, and works pretty well, but I miss having to make decisions related to Rescue.
Story was...bad. Just....bad.

Just my opinion. It's not as bad as what the super elitists and myself make it out to be, but it's definitely not as good as people love to hype it up to be. Lots of people love it, but that comes naturally for a Nintendo game built for mainstream consumers, casuals, and the blue ocean market.

@AVahne
"Meh. I mean Awakening was a good game. Great game in fact. It's just personally, I rank it rather low on the list of FEs I've played"

That I can respect. It's those who treat it as complete garbage that I cannot.

"but that comes naturally for a Nintendo game built for mainstream consumers, casuals, and the blue ocean market."

That I completely disagree with. Anyone playing a strategy RPG is not a casual gamer. I don't care if they played on casual mode and easy difficulty, The fact that they are playing a game of such technical status is it in and of itself something that only core gamers do. Blue ocean is referring to the 200 million people who play candy crush, not the 1-2 million core Nintendo gamers that bought Awakening. The same gamers who buy Metroid, and Zelda, etc

Casuals are those with little to no gaming experience, or who play intermittently. My dad, he's a casual. Played Tetris 20 years ago and likes his Bejeweled on the computer. People like him can barely grasp the mechanics of a 2D Mario game, much less a strategy RPG. That's why all the ads were in gamer magazines, gaming websites, etc. They just wanted to give Awakening some exposure and notoriety among gamers, which I think they accomished quite well.

@AVahne
Just a side note, I agree the story was nothing special, however, the witty banter among characters was among the finest I've seen in recent games, and it was so entertaining that I didn't really care much about the story.

Persona 4 Dancing All Night is another good example of this- meh story, but listening to the characters go at it back-and-forth was so entertaining that I didn't even seem to notice.

It's almost, IMO, better than having a good story. Not that most previous FE games had that good a story anyways though. I'm just wrapping up FE7 and there's a nice plot twist in chapter 26 but other than that the entire game has been pretty bland story wise.

I'm looking forward to the book, but have my reservations. Particularly as the title is: "The Making of Fire Emblem: The 25th anniversary which put together with anecdote of Awakening and If." I don't want Awakening/Fates to overshadow the other titles. I mean, the cover is a good sign, but on the whole, there are many more untold stories for previous titles, and unsung heroes of development yet to get the spotlight. We need more on Shouzou Kaga, Taeko Kaneda, Sachiko Wada, etc.

Does everyone forget the horrid map design that FE13/Awakening had? That's the one reason I cannot continue to trudge through the game, I'd much rather go play Path of Radiance or Sacred Stones. Awakening bores me to tears because the game's too easy, and artificial difficulty with just raised stats and not better improved AI is not fun at all, the characters are one-note and mostly shoving their gimmick in your faces, the plot's bad, kids are forced, reclassing is broken, Light magic doesn't exist anymore, Dark magic is more of a subset of Anima magic, and a few other gripes I can't think of off the top of my head.

Over the few years between when I got Sacred Stones and now, I played a decent amount of Fire Emblem games and the whole time I thought Awakening was a great game. I was severely disappointed when I finally picked it up.

@AVahne I can't say I agree with you whatsoever. I think Awakening is a great Fire Emblem game, and that it certainly does not lose to older entries. I've played the games for years and beyond the most primitive games (read: the "ancient" ones xD) I've played most of the games in the franchise. I agree a bit with some of the characters, since personally the main draw character-wise for me was the children. I absolutely loved their personalities so much that I've probably spent over 1k hours just trying them out as different classes with different weapons, spouses and teams.

I think you're painting a pretty but rose-tinted picture of the previous games to be honest. Sure you might call the new Pair Up function hand-holding as opposed to Rescue, but I sure as hell don't see it that way. If anything is hand-holding, that'd be the dual guard mechanic.

I don't know what you have against the story. I thought it was decent. Nothing special to be honest, but then again, I've never played Fire Emblem for the overall story, but for the punishing gameplay and critical decisionmaking required.

My previous sentence also relates to your final words in your comment: "It's not as bad as what the super elitists and myself make it out to be, but it's definitely not as good as people love to hype it up to be. Lots of people love it, but that comes naturally for a Nintendo game built for mainstream consumers, casuals, and the blue ocean market."

I'd say overall it is in-between the elitist and hype opinions, but much closer to the hype rating than the elitist one. Gameplay-wise, it is top notch. I love it. And I'm not some simple casual gamer. Furthermore, the game (and franchise as a whole) was not, and never will be built for mainstream consumers, casuals, and the blue ocean market. The second that happens, the franchise dies.

I don't know which game you've been playing, but beyond the bad handling of difficulty by ramping up stats instead of AI, this game is nothing like what you've described it as I'm not blind to the flaws it has at all, but it is a great game, and a good Fire Emblem game.

I can't wait to get the English version of Fates (I've played a bit of my JP copy, but I refuse to go too far because I want the story in English ), the new mechanics and changes make it so damned enjoyable. Got a feeling that one will be one for the books.

@Blizzia - "I think Awakening is a great Fire Emblem game, and that it certainly does not lose to older entries."
Well, this is quite wrong. It comes down to opinion. Awakening's a great game to a degree, but many older entries own Awakenings arse. FE4, 7, 9. These games are the best of the franchise. And this isn't just my opinion, these are just overall sum from the heaps of fans. Story, gameplay, characters, maps, and these three had them without screwing almost the franchise in two.

"I don't know what you have against the story. I thought it was decent."
The Risen flow out of chapter 2 and never appear again until after the time skip? That's not really decent, really bad. Decision making doesn't matter, that's quite bad. Endgame, bad. But you not once talk about how FE 7 makes the main character kill the character that you ship with. The only Fire Emblem to only make me cop such a feel.

"Gameplay-wise, it is top notch. I love it." Well that's you opinion, that's why you love it, but others might not. They might not like the mass load of grinding you have to do, massive stats, the insane difficulty spike on Lunatic that makes the game more difficult but not even fair, and the maps compared to Sacred stones where strategy is implemented on maps being A to B.
Awakening is good, but it definitely not the best.

@KO-Cub Your whole reply was an opinion on why I am wrong. Since our opinions differ, we cannot really agree, which makes it pointless. "Well, this is quite wrong. It comes down to opinion." You kinda screwed yourself over there mate. It can't be wrong or right if it is down to opinion Mind you I also wrote "I THINK", meaning it was my opinion and not a universal law. Good day to you sir.