Fire Emblem Echoes

The 3DS has arguably been the most impactful platform for the Fire Emblem series, playing host to a succession of three titles that all manage to take the series to new heights in their own ways. The last of these--Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia—was a remake of the second Fire Emblem game, but in several ways acted as a sort of pseudo sequel to the preceding Fire Emblem Fates. The developers of Echoes recently reflected more on this, along with many other aspects of developing the game for new audiences.

Nintendo Dream recently rounded up the game’s producers and directors for a bit of a post-mortem on the game, now that it’s been out for a few months. One of the more fascinating points made was how each Fire Emblem game for the 3DS utilized the aging technology more efficiently and ultimately allowed them to do more each time. Here’s what was said:

Yamagami: Basically, if you repeatedly make games for the same hardware, methodologies and technology progress and you are able to do things that you weren’t able to before. So, things we had to abandon for Awakening were able to make it into Fates. So, as technology advanced during Fates‘ development, there were things we wanted to implement but couldn’t fit by the time we got near the last stages of making the game. As such, it came down to “There’s still something we want to make.”

Kusakihara: Things like dungeons. You could walk around “My Castle” in Fates in full 3D, for instance, but it was very rough and difficult to implement at the time. Things like that eventually led to being able to walk around the dungeons in this game.

The full interview can be read here, and it’s certainly worth a look if you’re interested in learning how the team challenged itself creatively.

What do you think? Which Fire Emblem game is your favorite? How do you think the new Switch game could improve on the formula? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

[source kantopia.wordpress.com]