I finally crawled out from underneath my rock, and after adjusting my eyes to the blinding light of the outside world, have discovered that not one but TWO Fire Emblem games are in the works... and they honestly look really interesting.
Now, I'll say Awakening was *alright*, it definitely improved on a lot of things and it was satisfying in how fun it was... but it ultimately left me feeling bitter and disappointed. I'd need to fly into a multi-paragraph diatribe to elaborate on that bitterness, but my point is that Awakening badly damaged my hope that future FE titles will stand up under scrutiny.
The two new games planned are Shin Megami Tensei x Fire Emblem, and Fire Emblem: Fates.
Now, I also thought SMT 4, which I played through twice, was kind of underwhelming. That being said, when I heard that there was gonna be a crossover title my brain immediately exploded in excitement. I don't know what it is, but Nintendo's 'canon' main line titles are all kinda mediocre and unimpressive, but all of their 'non-canon' crossover titles recently have been fuckin dynamite smash hit homeruns.
I'm not even sure what the gameplay of it will be, the trailer for it is honestly very vague, but from what I can find the story promises a battle of "Glamour vs Darkness" which honestly has me hopeful that it'll be something very original and fun...
But it's gonna be exclusive on the Wii U. Dammit Nintendo stop trying to push that stupid system with the five pound controller.
Now, exclusive to the 3DS, is gonna be Fire Emblem: Fates. Which, being a main line title in the style of Awakening has me very skeptical right from the start. However, it promises a two-sided story, one path completely different from the other, promising a different story, difficulty, and gameplay. That sounds ambitious and interesting even with no context provided, cause I had to rooting around for context cause the minute and a half E3 trailer provided next to no fuckin information but after going out of my way to learn about it it sounds really cool...
but that two-sided story? It's separated into two separate games pokemon style.... WHAAAAT? I don't get that at all Nintendo. I don't even care about the monetary cost of buying 2 separate games Nintendo, please gouge my wallet, I have money to spare, but that's just straight up fuckin confusing. How would someone just browsing in the aisles be able to see and differentiate these two games with no prior research done? One is basically defined as being the 'babby's first FE' in the same kind of easy gameplay style that Awakening is, and the other is defined as being the more challenging in-line with the Jugdral and Archaeneian games.
Now, this is just my assessment, but Ever since FE 5, Nintendo has been a real prick about installments of Fire Emblem. Every game it's some new gimmick, and that idea ON PAPER always seems alright, but in execution Intelligent Systems and Nintendo always find a way to just be an asshole about it. This is definitely one of those times.
And even worse, my research indicates there's gonna be a version that does include both stories in one, but it seems like it's gonna be a deluxe or preorder version of the game, which is irritating at the very least, and Amiibo-scarcity-style malicious at the very worst.
But it seems like both of these games will be due for the relatively far future, and as an embittered FE fan I wanted to weigh in on my first impressions.