It’s amazing how many fans Fire Emblem has gained over the years.
It’s risen from a mere curiosity in Smash Bros. Melee to a game that’s considered
one of the best on the 3DS.
And now a sequel is coming that looks to take what Awakening established and go even bigger
and better.
So it’s time for the old analysis machine to take a look and see just what we can expect
from this sequel.
From the beginning, a very different vibe can be felt with this trailer.
Instead of the more European influenced medieval weaponry, the soldiers are equipped in a more
Japanese style with that country’s version of swords and spears, or lances in Fire Emblem
terms.
The army these men are facing, however, are based on traditional medieval warfare.
They have their own style of swords and lances with the only major difference being that
they’re on horseback.
But the armor and equipment of this Western army makes them seem more villainous as the
horses have armor with devil horns and shields at their side with a demonic face.
It certainly feels like the Eastern-influenced army are the good guys in this scene based
on aesthetics alone.
But the scene shifts to reveal a Pegasus rider.
There’s nothing inherently interesting about this character except that the soldier is
wielding an Eastern-styled lance and the Pegasus has a symbol draped over its hind quarters.
This is the insignia of the Eastern forces.
The lance suggests this in the first place, but the same insignia appears later as well
as when the two armies are facing down in an open field.
This symbol shows up on the Eastern-styled flag while the Western flag has a new symbol
that’s most definitely their insignia.
However, these seem to be completely unique in their design so it’s possible that this
is a new timeline in the series or at least far removed from any other.
Going back to the scene with the Pegasus rider, the tide of battle seems to have shifted.
While the Western forces were winning previously, here they seem to be under siege.
While Pegasus riders fight in the foreground, regular soldiers can be seen climbing siege
ladders in the background.
Could this be a hint at the presence of more siege battles in the main game?
From the few gameplay tidbits we’ve seen so far, it just appears to be regular battles
so it’s doubtful.
One of the craziest moments though is when a giant stone-faced monster attacks.
Unlike many fantasy games, Fire Emblem rarely features mythical monsters but they’re not
unheard of.
Both Fire Emblem Gaiden and The Sacred Stones had monsters to fight, but they were never
this huge.
The design is also unique since the face is based off the Mouth of Truth that can be found
in Rome.
We’d also like to thank Jareloh on Twitter for pointing out its origins to us.
The golem looks to be attacking the Eastern forces so rather than a monster; could this
be a kind of weapon under the control of the West?
It’s incredibly hard to say for sure, but it being under control of the West isn’t
too far-fetched when you think of its European inspiration.
A stranger inspiration comes in the next scene where a Western captain on a horse is facing
down an Eastern Captain.
Both have their swords drawn, but the armor of the Westerners is decidedly less demon-like
this time.
Instead, there seems to be a playing card motif.
The horse armor is designed with diamonds and hearts.
The shield at its hind quarters also has a spade design which reappears on a soldier’s
shield.
The only suit missing is the club.
Is this all just a coincidence or is there a specific reason for this design?
It’s then revealed that these scenes depicted the presumed past.
What’s intriguing is that the art style for the cutscenes changes from pure CG to
the more cel-shaded look of Fire Emblem Awakening.
Is this how the game will denote the past from the present?
Or is it merely a stylistic choice in this case?
At any rate, as the camera pans away from the painting, we can see an old man in black
armor sitting in a chair.
Who is this man?
We never see him again in the trailer yet he’s dressed in more of a Western style.
Could he be a king?
The camera pans out even further to show that wherever this king is, it’s not in a traditional
theater.
The seating seems typical, but there’s actually a pool of water between them and the stage.
Of more importance though is the fact that there are Venetian boats resting in the water.
This is the second reference to Italy that we’ve seen so far.
Could it indicate that the specific European influence for this Fire Emblem will be Italy?
It already seems that the Eastern influence can mainly be traced back to Japan.
It’s then that we see the blue-haired dancing girl for the first time.
And though she’s dancing, she seems to be in obvious distress, almost as if she was
being held here against her will.
Her design could hold some clues to her importance though.
There are flower symbols all over her dress that could indicate that she’s from the
Eastern nation originally.
They’re not exact, but they are quite reminiscent of the various flower symbols that Japan has.
She’s also wearing a necklace that just may mark her as royalty.
At the very least, it’s incredibly important as it begins glowing when she’s in trouble
during a later scene in the trailer.
Any other information about her is unknown, including her name.
The transition to the gameplay is somewhat notable though.
The camera zooms in toward her eye and a strange effect can be spotted.
However, there doesn’t seem to be any kind of relation to the Mark of Naga from Awakening.
This is potentially something different.
But when we get to the actual gameplay, we see that there is just as much Eastern influence
as before.
The entire battle is taking place in some kind of home or even a palace.
More difficult to pin down as far as a Western or Eastern influence is the character designs
for the sprites; we’re not sure which side they’re supposed to be on.
However, we can see that the dancing girl from before is in this battle on the front
left.
The player’s army consists of her, a Cavalier, two Assassins or potentially Ninjas, two Pegasus
Knights, two Clerics or possibly mages, two swordsmen, a Dancer, and a different kind
of mage from the other two.
As for the enemy designs, they seem to be from the East judging from their helmets.
We do learn one of the character’s names in this scene though thanks to the many fan
translations that have come out since the trailers release.
This girl is named Kazahana while the enemy is simply listed as a Dark Knight Soldier.
Kazahana is wielding a large and strangely curved sword that seems to be all new to the
series.
However, we suspect that her actual class is a Myrmidon.
What’s odd though is how little damage she’s actually able to do.
The animation makes it look like she’s preparing for a second attack, but the battle info beforehand
shows that she will only hit once.
Is she just using a very weak sword?
What’s really neat though is how the transition into battle has improved since Awakening.
While it zooms in on the characters like that game, it doesn’t have to fade to black.
Instead, the sprites shrink and disappear as the camera pans toward them.
As it reaches ground level, the more detailed characters phase in and the surroundings stay
pretty much the same.
This isn’t a separate area just for fights.
It’s one of the most obvious graphical improvements that the game has.
The other?
The characters actually have feet this time!
In fact, you can even see that Kazahana is wearing heels.
That just makes her backflip all the more impressive!
During the Direct, Iwata was providing more information on the game that we’ll get to
later, but it also showed a scene that does not appear in the trailer proper.
It depicts a blonde girl with a golden sword in the middle of a winter village.
The village’s design is rather unique with pillars of ice interspersed with the houses.
There’s also some kind of strange structure in the background as well as a large wall.
This area is much harder to pin down as either Eastern or Western.
But the reason we brought it up now is that it’s the only scene that the shows the transition
out of combat.
It’s pretty much the same as the zoom, just done in the opposite direction.
What’s really cool though is how many of the landmarks from the close-up can still
be seen in relatively the same place when in the overhead view.
However, there are limits to what these transitions can show.
We see this in the next battle scene that takes place near a bridge.
The characters in the player’s party are mostly the same, most notably the dancing
girl, but there are two new characters: a black-haired boy and a female archer.
Interestingly, the enemy shows a unique sprite of a woman on a horse in this scene.
But back to the transitions, we see the Pegasus Knight attack an enemy soldier.
However, despite attacking from the side, the transition places her on the bridge.
So in cases like this, there will limitations to what can be represented both on the overhead
map and the fight scenes.
But there’s one more cool thing that the transitions can do in certain cases.
When the fight begins, the background shows an army of Eastern soldiers filling in which
could indicate that players will be taking the Eastern side in this game.
They even have the same symbol on their flag from the beginning of the trailer.
And of course, the girl is fighting a Western soldier in this fight so when the camera rotates,
it shows the Western army on the other side of the bridge.
This creates a greater sense that a battle is taking place and not just a small skirmish
between twenty or so soldiers.
But this is the only time this effect happens so it’s likely reserved for battles where
that’s the case.
Though, wait, weren’t we fighting Eastern soldiers before?
Why are they suddenly Western styled?
Well, they may be part of the same army.
When this girl, whose name is Hinoka, challenges the soldier, his name is listed as a Dark
Knight Soldier as well.
So it looks like this Dark Knight group could potentially be comprised of soldiers from
both sides.
We have a theory about this, but we’re going to save it for later as it has ties to Iwata’s
comments.
The last bit we wanted to point out about this scene was that Hinoka’s lance translates
to Naginata which is indeed a Japanese spear.
So it looks like we could be seeing a host of new weapons based on medieval Japanese
weaponry.
The next scene is just a conversation with two maids hovering over the camera.
The translations state that the girl who’s talking is called Felicia and she’s asking
someone named Kamui to wake up.
Could this possibly indicate that players will be able to create an avatar in the game
like Robin in Awakening?
And if this is the case, it seems like you start out as a royal or at least someone rich
enough to afford maids.
However, there is one more interesting connection.
The origin of the name Felicia has its roots in latin, and its used in many different Western
countries.
Most notably in this case is Italian.
Admittedly it’s a much shakier connection to Italy than the previous two examples, but
we felt like it could be an interesting bit of information.
We meet more new characters in the next scene where the man speaking is called Ganz.
His dialogue is mocking in tone, calling the other character a naïve prince.
Is it possible that this young man is the player character referred to as Kamui?
We even see this character fighting in battle soon after in a Japanese-styled castle.
Strangely, for possibly being the player character, he doesn’t show up for any more than this.
Instead, the focus seems to shift toward another character named Marks.
His dialogue suggests that he is also a royal and expresses concern for his father.
Because of his Western design, it’s possible that Marks father could be the old man we
saw in the theater.
And perhaps even that the player character and he could be brothers.
Nothing else in the trailer suggests this connection, but we are attempting to connect
the dots in order to see the greater whole.
What we do know is that Marks is incredibly powerful, taking down a large monster, the
second we’ve seen in this trailer, with one hit.
The monster even drops some kind of mask as it flies back.
Could that mask be how the enemy controls it if it’s being controlled at all?
And though we can’t see its design, could it be a smaller version of the Mouth of Truth?
That would explain how the Western army was controlling the golem in the beginning.
At any rate, this kind of power from Marks makes us think that he could take the role
of Frederick from Awakening and act as a super powerful unit to tear through enemies early
on.
Other scenes show off different battles.
One shows that characters will once again protect one another if they’re nearby.
However, the angle of the girl’s rescue would suggest that she’s coming from the
opposite side of the enemy.
Could the team-up area have been expanded for this game?
Maybe now, if a player surrounds an enemy, they will both be able to support one another.
This scene also shows a different battle area, this time being a ship port filled with Eastern-styled
boats.
The next battle displays a new magic spell and a weapon.
The ice spell that’s being used is strange in many ways.
For one, it comes out of the center of a series of spinning fans and in the middle of the
ice is an ethereal mouse.
Just what kind of class is this?
It’s difficult to completely make out her appearance, but we wonder if she’s some
kind of unique dancer.
The other character attacks with a rod-like weapon that creates a small explosion though
it only causes four damage.
It’s really starting to seem like this Fire Emblem will be introducing a lot of new classes,
weapons, and even spells thanks to these Eastern inspired armies.
And there’s even more variation to the battlefields as this one takes place in a small town with
two windmills near a vast desert.
But that’s it as far as gameplay.
The rest of the trailer seems to be disparate cutscenes with the first coming from the game’s
opening movie as it has a similar artstyle to the one from Awakening.
It has its own mysteries as well since a figure can be seen before the camera goes hurtling
into the crevasse.
Who is this person?
While we’re not a hundred percent positive, we think it could be the man at the very end
of the trailer that faces down Marks.
But we’ll go into more detail about him soon enough.
As the camera finishes travelling down the crevasse, it switches to a land that appears
to be floating in the sky complete with a town in the background that looks entirely
vertical.
Is this some kind of different world that’s somehow accessed by going deep underground?
Or is that just a transition and there really are islands floating in the sky above this
world?
But the mysteries keep coming as we see the dancing girl fall into some kind of body of
water with a dragon-like being on top of her.
As the scene continues, the dragon fades away into more of a human shape that has his hand
around her throat.
Could this unknown figure be the main villain of the game?
Or is there some other significance?
All we really know, once again, is that her necklace has to be something of importance
since it begins to glow.
The trailer comes to an end with Marks and the man in Japanese armor facing each other
down.
Marks is off of his horse and the sword in his hand has a special design.
It looks similar to the Falchion, but it’s not the same.
There are key differences such as the black hilt, the red jewel, and the longer gap in
the center of the blade.
The other man could be a prince as well and has an ornately designed katana.
This may be the embodiment of the war that takes place in this new Fire Emblem with the
dancing girl seemingly split between the two of them even though she looks to be in a different
scene entirely.
It’s that split though that may be the central idea in this game.
Iwata stated in the Direct that there would be more choice than ever.
Is it possible that players can choose sides between the Western and Eastern forces?
This could possibly affect who joins you, what weapons and classes you have access to,
and how the story progresses.
What that story could be, we’re not entirely sure, but we suspect that it features a third
side consisting of elements from both the East and West that are trying to mislead the
two to go to war against each other.
Another possibility concerns the dancing girl.
What if the player becomes another faction in order to help this girl stop the fighting?
And perhaps along the way, they enlist forces from both sides in order to show everyone
that the East and West can work together.
Either way, this new Fire Emblem is looking utterly fantastic.
It seems to be taking what fans and newcomers loved about Awakening and expanding upon it
greatly.
It’s still too early to say when it will be released, but you can be sure that we’ll
cover it every step of the way.
Of course, let us know if we missed anything in the comments.
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