The developers of Fire Emblem Warriors recently sat down with Nintendo Dream to talk about the game. A follow-up to a similar interview conducted in July, the devs – Producer Yosuke Hayashi and Director Hiroya Usada – talked about the game’s reception at E3, roster decisions, and more. Here’s the lowdown:
- What was shown at E3 is “roughly 20%” of what will be in the full game. Considering there were seven characters shown off at the convention, that means we can predict a full cast of somewhere between 30 and 40 – quite impressive.
- When asked why the game’s original protagonists used swords (given that a stated reason that several FE games wouldn’t have their rosters considered because too many lords used the weapon, causing much backlash) the devs stated it’s primarily for tutorial purposes, to let the players be able to easily grasp the ideas of switching between characters and the weapon triangle.
- Chrom was the first character created for the game – not due to pitying his lack of Smash presence, but due to his 3D character model in Awakening cutscenes being a reference (and he because he had a sword).
- Lissa wields an axe because the team wanted all staves to be used solely for healing (evidently they never played Radiant Dawn), and she can use axes when she promotes. She was added because of her relationship with Chrom, which was also used as criteria for several other units.
- Lucina was almost not added to the game, actually – not just because of her role as another sword user, but because of her status as a second generation character (which would introduce the question of whether other second gen characters from Awakening should be added). After talking with Nintendo and Intelligent Systems she was added, likely due to popularity, recognition, and the fact that she leaves the door open for more characters in the future.
- Lucina and Chrom have nearly the same exact actions, being father and daughter – in fact, it sounds like many characters in the same class will have similar movesets. They will have subtleties that separate them, however – such as standing loop animations and special attacks.
- Robin was decided to be a tome user due to – you guessed it – too many swords. He was also added due to his relationship to Chrom, as Usuda states: “If Chrom’s other half wasn’t there, it wouldn’t feel right” (take that as you will, shippers).
- When deciding who to add, the dev team used a chart to separate characters into weapon types and ranks A to C – A being those story essential, B for more popular side characters, and C for those whose addition would be ok. Over time an additional “S” rank mysteriously cropped up, for those characters whose absence would feel mystifying and strange. Naturally, many characters were put in the S and A ranks by the devs.
- Frederick was also chosen due to his relationship to Chrom, and his position as a mounted unit who could use axes.
- The devs really enjoying working with the Japanese voice cast, who are all quite enthusiastic and driven with their respective characters.
With the reveal of more characters later this month, it’d appear that FE Warriors has plenty more information to divulge before it releases sometime this autumn. Check out the full interview for more info, and stay wired as more characters and details are revealed in the upcoming weeks.
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Written by Amelia Fruzzetti
A writer and Nintendo fan based in Seattle, Washington. When not working for NinWire, she can be found eating pasta, writing stories, and wondering about when Mother 3 is finally going to get an official localization.
