The Fire Emblem Warriors Treasure Box, which was announced for Japan a few weeks ago, was shown in a little more detail today by Famitsu and other media outlets.
Those of you with really good eyes–or those who thought to zoom in on the the box itself–might notice some map sprites belonging to unconfirmed characters.
Credits: North2
Notes: This is highly incomplete.
—First, I would like to ask about the character illustrations that are going to be the first releases for the company…Why, this time, did you humbly decide to draw up character illustrations?
Actually, originally the game called Fire Emblem—by that I mean “The Dragon of Darkness and the Sword of Light”, was really never deeply thought out as a product to be sold, rather it was made on a whim as more like a doujin software with the help of 3 job-holding students (lol). So, at the time we couldn’t divide our energy into graphics either. Also in that sense, there was a lot of regrets towards visuals.
But, thanks to everyone “Dragon of Darkness and the Sword of Light” showed to be very popular, so for “Mystery of the Emblem”, planning on strengthening the visual side, we hired a young person with experience with animators, and had him draw dot pictures and package illustrations.
So, in reference to “Mystery of the Emblem” and “Genealogy of Holy War”, that designer put his hands on it, but unfortunately for “Genealogy of Holy War”, in the creation stage we didn’t have the time to spare…For that reason, for me, and I’m thinking probably for him also, in terms of visuals, it didn’t become a level of work that we can be fully satisfied with.
Because that kind of thing occurred, from “Genealogy of Holy War” onward, I’ve always been thinking if there’s any way to tell the users what our visual model was as the creators.
At that time, I had the opportunity to get to know Hirota-san who is responsible for the visuals…I can still remember it now. When I saw her drawing, a bolt of electricity ran all over my body. I thought,
“This is it!”. From there, I had her draw illustrations as a test, and as I saw it my thoughts changed into absolutions. She gave birth to things that I can be very satisfied with. So it came to be that we will ask Hirota-san for the current “Genealogy of Holy War” and also for our next work, and we are having him progress forward with the work right now.
—I See. From the beginning, “Genealogy of Holy War” is a game with a strong storyline. When becoming a core(hardcore) user, it seems that the images of characters in the head expands more and more. You’re saying that Kaga-san as the creator also has an image for the Fire Emblem world, and the visuals for this time is definitely that.
Yes, that’s what it means at least for my feelings on “Genealogy of Holy War”. Of course, for the users, these feelings are going to be different, and if all the users will feel the same way about that visuals this time is a whole different story.
And, on that point, I’m not thinking that I want to force my image. Because I think that each individual’s imaginations cannot be intruded. It means only that it fit my image perfectly. Also powerfully.
North2’s Note 1 : The big letters on the left say:
The illustrations this time is something that I can say with my chest held high, “The visuals that I was looking for was this”.
North2’s Note 2: Doujin basically means like a fanwork, not an actual company. Doujin site is a fansite, doujin illustrations is fanart, etc. etc.
Dot picture and package illustration is the direct translation, maybe someone with more experience in animations can shed some light on what it’s supposed to be.
For example, I can also say these kinds of things. In the middle of making a game, the framework is actually already decided on, but the true completion of the scenario is actually very last.
In those, I’m thinking this is the same for making movies, but if there’s a good actor/actress, then the director can make something good–basically meaning that the characters come to life. It is similar to that, because if I can also receive good characters, then my imagination can expand.
That type of spreading of imagination was there during
“Mystery of the Emblem”, but for “Genealogy of Holy War”–especially concerning the last half, as I said earlier, there wasn’t enough time, and there was a lot of these thoughts that couldn’t spread out.
—So that means, By viewing the drawn character’s expression, eyes, looks, etc., these characters start to move in Mr. Kaga’s head, like wouldn’t these characters move like this, think like this, and by expanding the imagination, the story spreads out more and more.
Yes, that is exactly how it is. That’s why that part may differ for other people. Of course, I do hold some setting and a small image, and have it drawn with that, but in my case I really carelessly ask to have drawn this many people of around that age, and that’s all I say.
Then, from my side the illustrations that come up become picked out for the character’s looks. Meaning, there is an audition (laugh). For example, the general of the country of wherever, and this kind of placement within the game…say we decided on that kind of role. In my case, the other parts–something that can be described as the personality and view of a human, even things like living habits, are imagined by the looks of the character and the image expands.
However, when the image that I first held and the image that floats up when I look at the illustration doesn’t match, then I really struggle. At worst, there are times when the setting that was there in the first place can completely die.
That’s why just because the image went off, there are times when a character that was supposed to shine more drops to a complete sub(non-important, bench-warmer), and stating an extreme case, there are lots of characters that we won’t even use or put in the game anymore.
Of course, there are cases opposite to that…Jamuka for example. In the first setting, he wasn’t a bowfighter, rather a crabby-legged(squatting) axefighter, but Jamuka became very favored to me. That’s why as he changed to a bowfighter, and added more and more skills, he ended up becoming that strong of of character.
Basically meaning that by getting addicted, or not addicted, of course the character’s importance changes, and for some instances the setting may even change too.
From there, this time, answering as to why I thought that this was it when I saw Hirota-san’s illustrations, when I saw her pictures, the images that I couldn’t quite entirely express up until now just sprung up like an explosion.
Adding to that, when asking Hirota-san, there’s only very easy conversations from my side. However, she is also a “Fire Emblem” core user who holds an image of her own, and despite being drawn in that form, she comes up with exactly what I’ve been visualizing.
Perhaps this time’s illustrations of the 12 holy warriors which makes it their first appearance is another form of this. Even though aren’t spoken of to the point where it can be said that they’re not spoken at all, she drew it exactly like the image I held. Instinctively, I even thought that I want to make a story about the 12 holy warriors (laugh).
—So, the illustrations that we are having released in this book are born in an ideal shape.
At first, I was expectedly worried. However, now I am truly very relieved. That’s why I am sure. Sureness in that probably for users also, although not 100%, but an overwhelming majority of them will be happy. If that was wrong, then this is just a problem with my own tastes(laugh).
I’m not thinking that most people will think that this is it from the beginning. Because, for the deep playing users especially, the illustrations in the TV screen and and the illustrations shown in the cover are the only truths. Because of that, when suddenly looking at the illustrations, I think there will be reactions like “That’s wrong”.
For example, when making
“Genealogy of Holy War”, for the first year, I actually thought that it sort of won’t be understood, or there will be more people that are dissatisfied. However, around a year later, I also had confirmation that people that is willing to understand it will understand it. As for the result, well, it was just as expected. There’s even people that play it now.
That’s why, also in reference to this time’s illustrations, as the time goes on it will be understood. Yes I’m hoping that maybe the first month won’t be so clear, but within half a year it will be the norm.
Adding more, for the first time the entire body’s visual was released. From that influence, there’s some talk within the community that there may be more people that will cosplay.
But Hirota-san is definitely a woman. The clothing that she draws can actually be made. Readers that have viewed the illustrations, I’m also looking forward to cosplays (laugh).
—Next, I think I would like to ask a little more about the contents of the game. First, Levin. As for him, Levin in the first half and Levin in the second half is completely different for both gameplay and storyline. Anyways, even if Levin dies in the first half, he comes back in the second half regardless. Celice even states in the end that Levin is the warrior “Forsety of the Wind” from a distant country. At this point, it feels like Levin is Levin and not Levin at the same time. Is there anything you can comment?
Realistically, Levin held a destiny where he was supposed to die, but the Dragon race–The gods that descended during the miracle at Darna Fortress was actually of the Dragon race–intervened and he was kept alive. At that time, one of the ‘Geas’…meaning, by binding contracts that can be seen in Celtic mythology with the Dragon race, Levin is living as Levin.
(Editor’s note: I changed the previous translation of “Gesshu” to more accurately reflect real-life mythology.)
This means that there’s no doubt that the Levin in the second half is basically the same person as Levin in the first half. However, he’s given a part of himself to Forsety… And, when the Holy War ends, Forsety actually leaves, but because of ‘Geas’, Levin can’t live as Levin so to speak, and cannot retain his original existence so he cannot go back to Silesia and take the crown.
That is why this part is a discordance where the dragon race who had a law to not intervene with the human race did what they are usually not supposed to do–saving a person who was supposed to die.
Actually, other characters who appeared in the first half are in a similar placement. This means that not everyone died, but they are also not allowed to intervene with the glorious acts of the children’s generation, so they do not appear in the second half.
Adding more to that, the 12 demon lords of the final chapter. Within them are people who carry the blood of the 12 holy warriors–such as Ahato, Zechs, Zhiben, basically exist in the same way as Levin. This means that they were originally skilled warriors or holy workers. The setting is that their conscience has been absorbed. This means, although it hasn’t been stated, each one of them actually have a drama of their own.
In the next game, people like that may appear, or may not appear, but in my image, each of them have a solid background.
Credits: North2
Ayra’s home country Isaac was invaded by Grandbell’s large army, and it was on the verge of destuction. Her brother and king of the time Maricle prophesized his own fate of death and hands over his only son (also only child) Shannan to Ayra. He desired Shannan to be protected until the coming reconstruction of Isaac.
At the time, any men in the enemy’s royal family, even children, were to be executed. The better case for women would be slavery, and the usual case was to be raped and murdered. Maricle of course did not want his son Shannan, nor his kawaii (in this context it doesn’t suggest anything other than brotherly love) sister, to go through such a thing. He knew that if he said to take care of Shannan, his competetive sister would not be able to say no. As Maricle thought, Ayra had no choice but to take Shannan and escape the battlefield, and her country.
The only thing is that at this time, the only country who have not been under the influence of the gigantic country of Grandbell was the hostile (towards Grandbell) country of Verdane. Even if she escaped to one of the countries with peaceful relations with Grandbell, if their identity was revealed it was not impossible for them to be presented as prisoners (to Grandbell). So Ayra escapes to Verdane, but her long time wandering made it difficult to even get the meal for the day, so she had no choice but to work as a mercenary for Verdane. Ayra who held a brave yet pure heart lending a hand for Kinbois’ atrocities had that kind of circumstance behind it.
North2’s note: kawaii means cute/adorable, like a fuzzy bunny or a cute girl. If the writer was trying to express something more than brotherly love then he would probably add a little more descriptions to suggest it. So I believe it’s just the big brother looking out for his cute little sister.
Sorry, I missed a word there. ‘At the time, IN WAR any men in the enemy’s royal family, even children, were to be executed’. It’s not really cruelty of Grandbell…it was just a rule of war at the time. Leaf would be executed by Thracia too if he was captured. I think Tiltyu was taken in as a slave or something by Blume. Althena is an exception =P.
When the tradegies of Shigyun’s running away and Victor’s death assaulted the Velthomer family at the same time, Alvis was 7 years old.
There was a member of the Velthomer family who became the new leader, but he (Alvis) himself had what can be called a ‘gift of Kings’, and held a talent and toughness/strength which was hard to believe it could come from a child, and maintained the stature as Velthomer’s leader.
In fact, the person who supported him (Alvis) from the shadows was Barhara’s Price Kuluto, but Alvis only learned this fact a long time later.
Also, Alvis exiled all but one of his father Victor’s mistresses. He ordered their children to be demoted to servants or exiled. The only mistress left was a girl who was his mother Shigyun’s maid servant. Although she went through a tough childhood and wasn’t beautiful, she had a kind heart and frequently took care of Alvis. Even Alvis could not be cruel towards her.
Although Victor got his hands on the girl from the momentum of being drunk, when he knew the girl got pregnant he yelled, cursed, used violence, and tried to drive her away. The person who scolded at this was Shigyun, and the very child who this girl got pregnant with was in fact Azel. When Victor died, Azel was just born.
Alvis hated (like truly hated) his father for making mother sad for immature thoughts. When that father commited suicide, and Shigyun ran away, a cold mask always floated around the young expression. But, he thought of that mistress and Azel as his own family.
From there, the mistress was grateful for Alvis, and served him by taking care of the space around him, but she also died of disease around 10 years later.
From then on, there was no sight of a woman around Alvis.
North2’s note: Oh I think I got it. It’s the feeling of hate that makes you think ‘I wish ____ didn’t exist’. It doesn’t mean Alvis wants to kill his father, although it doesn’t rule out the possibility either. Judge for yourself from Alvis’s personality. In my opinion I’d say Alvis just wanted his father to go to another country and not come back.
The holy workers before the Lopto church commonly practiced rituals of the primal religion, and in reality they had no special abilities other than that they could read and write, had knowledge in herbs, and performed basic doctoral techniques. However, one of those people, Galae, acquired the power of Lopto and came back to the country. After that, holy workers of the newly constructed Lopto church used special spellbooks and staves and was able to acquire supernatural powers. Then, they controlled the world using those powers as the background (backbone), and finally achieved in creating the Lopto Empire with Galae as the peak(leader). Then the Lopto Empire even developed an absolute caste society. Especially followers of the other religion who was in the lowest caste became the Empire’s slaves, and was forced to live a life worse than poverty. On top of that, in the current situation the majority of civilians were followers of another religion because they were too poor to enter the Lopto religion, meaning they were slaves.
Under this situation, the group called Maira-ha (The -ha means style/type, pretty much like how there’s Sunni Islam or Protestant Christians…so you can think of them as Mairist Loptos. I’ll call them Mairists from here on) was in the Lopto religion but believed in the teachings of Maira, and for that they were labeled as revolutionists or justicists. Maira, although he was a member of the emperial family, protected the civilians, and was a crusader (saint) that later on caused a rebellion and was exiled. However, the teachings of Maira was something that tried to place the Lopto god to the high ranks of the Earthen (no real translation for this, I believe its read Dokishin) gods and plotted for the gods to be harmonialized to try to lose the discrimination within the Empire, so it (the teachings of Maira) was recieving pressure and obstruction from the Lopto Empire. Although Maira was said to be the one and only good person within the Emperial inner circle, he was put in a place as a secret messiah.
Blagi, who was one of the 12 holy knights, was a holy worker who received the teachings of that Mairist Lopto church. As he was about to become a sacrifice at a young age, he was saved by a Mairist bishop, and grew up in a hidden small island located in Augstria’s northern area which was one of their central locations. Then, in that land Blagi took in knowledge of a bishop, and joined the liberation army at a young age. He continued to fight against the oppression of the Lopto Empire, and as one of the last 12 fighters, met the miracle at Darna fortress. Blagi, who acquired the powers of the dragon race, was idolized as the one who controls fate and life’, and did myriad amounts of services during the holy war.
After the Empire was destroyed, Blagi went back to his Mairist home town that saved and nurtured him. However, that land was already destroyed by the Emperial army, and what struck his eyes was the dispersed corpses of priests. Suprised and terrified, he went on to save the ruined world, and in order to release the people from the aftereffects of the Lopto Church, strived to revive the old Earthen religion. This was because it was the one and only religion for the people who are put in a place against Lopto, and the Mairist bishops were also wishing for it. At that point, Blagi constructed a new church with his homeland of Edda as the base location, and at the same time constructed a gigantic tower at the island that protected and nurtured him. In one theory, it was said to seal his own powers, but the towers goal was to mourn for the Mairist priests who saved the world from destruction, and to serve as an omen for the next generation. The omen was that the reason to build the tower was to tell them there were people in the Emperial inner circle and the Lopto church that saved the people by sacrificing their own bodies (lives), and to pay the debts owed to their heavenly souls.
North2’s note: The caste system is a society in India with ‘levels’ that people are born into.
For people that may not know this (although most probably do), Maira was mentioned in the game. It was something like “Even if it is Lopto blood, the Lopto blood is that of Maira who fought for the people. Why should they be killed?'” This was in reference to the witch/devil hunt that was going on in for people that was claimed to have Lopto blood in their veins. Alvis was blackmailed by Manfloy because he would be burned at the stake if the world knew that he did have Lopto blood, and a man of that much pride would not want this.
[Translations by TheEnd begin here; based on these notes from the official site]
So, Blagi wanted to leave a warning to the future generations that the descendants of the Empire’s upper class citizens shouldn’t be persecuted or discriminated. Actually, Blagi wrote that himself in the altar’s stone monument, inside the tower, but somebody destroyed it later. Then, the warning was once again forgotten, and the results of such are well-known by everyone.
Eventually, the people started calling that place the “Blagi Tower” and started pilgrimages to there, as it was the place where Blagi, now a god, slept (his ashes were enshrined there). At this time, Blagi was one of the Twelve Apostles of the already organized Church of Edda, being the most worshipped god – “he who rules over life and destiny.”
In this world, those called heroes are frequently elevated to the level of lower class deities after their deaths; the high-ranking gods are eternal, the ones indicated by the primal religions as the world builders. By the way, the highest god is the sky deity called Yudu (or Gran), but these gods aren’t mentioned ingame. The Twelve Apostles are the newest group among the countless gods of this world, being the most vastly worshipped ones due to their activity in the holy war. They’re called guardian deities, military gods and other aliases.
Related to what was written before – the Church of Edda was created by the High Bishop Blagi in order to liberate the people from the Lopto Church. It’s based on the primal religion that had been present in the continent for millennia (nature worship = lots of deities). Generation after generation, those of House Edda, descendants of Blagi, have been revered in the entire continent as eminent holy workers.
Heim was a holy man was well, but at the same time he was a powerful (militarily) hero who saved the world, so House Barhara was revered as the world’s rulers. This might sound quite close to the Holy Roman Empire and the Roman Pope, I guess. (However, the Church of Edda doesn’t have the Roman Church’s worldly ambitions…).
[Translations by TheEnd stop here]
The Tower of Blagi was a place where large amounts of wealthy people traveled for pilgrimage. The faithful and wealthy Lord Ring(ring being the name) of Yungvy was also heading towards the Tower along with his children once again. However, the ship got caught in a storm and was in danger of sinking. The calm second daughter Eden and the scared first son Andrey stayed next to Lord Ring, but the energetic first daughter Bridgette was playing inside the ship and her whereabouts were unknown. Having no choice, Lord Ring takes the two children and evacuate the ship. Afterwards, they made best efforts to find Bridgette in all directions, but she could not be found…….
10+ Years later.
At Orgahill, Eden and Bridgette were finally reunited.
In truth, after Lord Ring evacuated the ship, the ship did not sink but rather hijacked by the Orgahill pirates. These Orgahill pirates were one of the pirate gangs claiming the seas around the Tower of Blagi as their territory, and they are categorized as one of the honorable pirate gangs. These seas where countless pirates targetted ships on their pilgrimage to the Tower were territory of the country of Anphony. However, the morals of this country’s army was lacking and they accepted bribes from the pirates in exchange for pretending not to see anything. This is where these honorable pirates came in, and they took fees from ships in exchange for securing the seaway. They defended the ship from pirates attacking with the intent to take over, and that’s how they made a living. However, even though they were honorable pirates, they were also infamous for mercilessly attacking ships that would not pay fees.
Bridgette, who was crying alone in the storage room at the bottom of the ship, was then picked up by the leader of the Orgahill pirates and was grown as his daughter. Luckily, the leader of this pirate gang that saved Bridgette was one of the most powerful and honorable pirates. And thus, she inherited her foster father’s will and was eventually called a honorable pirate even better than her father.
Note: This is a backdated article.
On 13th December, GameSpot and IGN shared English previews of Fire Emblem Engage. These both appear to be from Chapter 5, when Alear attempts to reclaim the Firenese castle from Elusian invaders.
Since Chapter 5 is fairly early on and we’ve seen bits of it before, in Clanne’s spotlight etc., there isn’t anything massively new. However, it’s cool seeing more of the game in English, plus we have confirmation of various English names.
First, a bunch of personal skills:
Also, Vander has S Axes. It’s nice to see S weapons are back, after being absent from Three Houses.