Fire Emblem: Fates is the final English title of the upcoming 3DS follow-up to 2013’s Fire Emblem: Awakening and will be released worldwide in 2016 (this month in Japan). It is developed by the same team at Intelligent Systems & Nintendo that created Fire Emblem: Awakening.
Check out the debut gameplay trailer for Fire Emblem: Fates from Nintendo’s E3 2015 Press Conference Digital Event.
Fire Emblem: Fates is the latest game in the long-running Strategy JRPG series that stretches all the way back to the NES and is the 9th core-entry in the franchise and the 14th Fire Emblem game overall, including remakes (most of the early games pre-2003 have still never been re-released outside of Japan).
Check out an extensive 30 full minutes of Fire Emblem: Fates gameplay, with the more difficult Nohr Path, in this Day 3 TreeHouse Live E3 2015 video.
Belive it or not, Fire Emblem: Awakening was originally set to be the final installment in the series, after sales had faltered to such a low point and the franchise failed to gain any traction in the West after years of trying.
Thankfully for us all, the development team put everything they had into Fire Emblem: Awakening for 3DS (which included elements from all of the Fire Emblem games as well as new elements that made it more accessible, like removal of Permanent Death of main characters)… and it was a rip-roaring success!
Fire Emblem: Awakening was far and away the best-selling game in the 15-year-old series (stretching back to 1990) and exceeded over 1 million copies sold worldwide! Thus outselling the last three games in the franchise combined.
Enter: Fire Emblem: Fates, which seeks to build on that success with a more involved & in-depth game with a more mature, darker tone, that will be released in two separate versions (Just like Pokemon), each with their own stories & subplots.
The Birthright version is being made specifically to be a more accessible experience that is easier to get into, whereas the Conquest version will be a tougher row to hoe.
However both versions will include two separate paths to trudge: the easier Hoshido, and the tougher Nohr.
This video shows you the easier Hoshido Path from Day 2 of Nintendo’s TreeHouse Live coverage from E3 2015.
FIRE EMBLEM FATES SYNOPSIS
Your Battle. Your Future. Your Fate.
Two kingdoms at war – the peace-loving Hoshido and the glory-seeking Nohr – It’s up to the player to decide which side to take.
As the prince/princess of Hoshido, who was raised by the Nohr royal family, you will be torn between two families you love. Whichever path you take, you will face different types of challenges.
Key Fire Emblem Fates Features:
* For the first time in the series, the player plays as the main character and commands his or her own army. The player character is a customizable avatar, like in Fire Emblem Awakening. Players can select to control either a male or female character with many different options available.
* During the game, the player must make the choice between Hoshido and Nohr. Each path will offer a completely different storyline with a different set of characters to recruit as allies.
* The Hoshido path is a more traditional path as you work together with your allies to fend off Nohrian invaders.
* The Nohr path will force you to revolutionize an unruly kingdom from the inside – this path offers a slightly more complex story and will be more challenging.
Last but not least, check out this half an hour more of gameplay footage from Fire Emblem: Fates via Nintendo’s E3 2015 TreeHouse Live Day 1 coverage.
Fire Emblem: Fates is Nintendo giving hardcore gamers exactly the kind of experience they crave with another in-depth, complex Fire Emblem Strategy RPG!
I’m very happy to see that the Fire Emblem series was not killed off and lives on to fight another day!
I still haven’t finished Fire Emblem: Awakening, but the game was my first-ever experience with any kind of Tactical RPG or Strategy RPG, and I had an absolute blast and loved every second of it.
It has prompted me to even go back and play all the rest of the Fire Emblem series one of these days.
I hope Nintendo snaps to their senses and gives us a Fire Emblem: Anthology set for Wii U or their upcoming NX console (the successor to the Wii U) that includes EVERY Fire Emblem title in a master collection (outside of Awakening & Fates).
It’s a crime that this amazing series has been experienced by so few gamers simply because Nintendo didn’t even release a Fire Emblem game outside of Japan until the 7th game in the series (simply titled “Fire Emblem” and released for the Game Boy Advance in 2003 following the popularity of Marth & Roy in Super Smash Bros. Melee).
Even though most of the games are in Japanese, Nintendo owes it to fans to FINALLY translate them (or use fan-translations as a base) and release them in English for everyone to enjoy.
This Anthology set should include ALL of the Fire Emblem games from NES to GameCube in one DVD boxset-style package, including the spin-offs and remakes. After which Nintendo should re-release all of them in digital form individually at a cheap price, so fans who are just getting into the series can experience the entire franchise.
But barring that, I’m still very happy to see Fire Emblem: Fates, it looks like another winner and another 3DS masterpiece that I am definitely looking forward to picking up.
How excited are you about Fire Emblem: Fates?