New Interview with the Devs.

[Arthur97]

2 minutes ago, phineas81707 said:

The developers don't seem to, why should I?

The initial joke still stands. I don't see how Lucina's marketability is any different to Ike's other than 'we can actually write a handwave to maybe put her in the Story mode'.

Honestly I kind of wish they did. Also, that poll came to late to be important.

Because she's from the pre-selected games. Ike is not. Besides, she has marketability to the more casual modern audience. In other words, the ones that actually make them money.

[bethany81707]

2 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

Are you just going to complain about every little thing in the game?

And you probably just answered your own question here. Lucina is easier to justify in the story (if she's in it) because she's from one of the three games primarily being used. I'm sure there's a way for Ike to be in it too, but it's probably more difficult meaning he could be better off as DLC.

It was largely a joke, but considering my current financial situation, there is a grain of "I'd really rather not...". I did buy all the Hyrule Warriors stuff, but things have changed since then- and I'm also warier of this title now that I have Warriors experience.

And is it really so bad to want Ike in the form of Toon Link's role in HWL to maybe pretend to compromise with the fans that would like Classic representation?

@Arthur97 Careful, you're edging into the opposite end of that fallacious argument...

[NeonZ]

42 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

DLC, dude.

She might not be in the story, actually. I remember something from those other articles that the early part of the story will be the twins, Chrom, Frederick, Robin, Lissa, and Cordelia. Lucina's not a part of this here. So unless she appears late in the story for whatever reason, she could be a non-story character. I kinda hope she isn't in the story, otherwise I feel like there'll be some stupid reason to try to justify why she's there. AND I don't want to be forced to play as her, though that's rather unlikely here.

We've seen her in a cutscene with Chrom (so it can't be battle or victory animations), so she's in the story.

Edited August 12, 2017 by NeonZ

[Iridium]

3 hours ago, Jedi said:

Owain is probably soft key confirmed because of that statement too. (Super popular after all)

Theres also this apparently.

 

gosh darn it chrom, you know darn well 40 characters isn't likely

I also kinda doubt we'd get Owain if they considered getting rid of Lucina for even a second, considering that Owain and Lucina fill virtually the same (kind of needless tbh) role except for the fact that Lucina is practically a face of the franchise now while Owain is just a relatively popular Awakening character.

Edited August 12, 2017 by Iridium

[Arthur97]

10 minutes ago, phineas81707 said:

It was largely a joke, but considering my current financial situation, there is a grain of "I'd really rather not...". I did buy all the Hyrule Warriors stuff, but things have changed since then- and I'm also warier of this title now that I have Warriors experience.

And is it really so bad to want Ike in the form of Toon Link's role in HWL to maybe pretend to compromise with the fans that would like Classic representation?

@Arthur97 Careful, you're edging into the opposite end of that fallacious argument...

...Opposite end? I mean, it's a fact that the newer ones sold more, so they are the ones bringing in the dough and new (albeit at times less dedicated) fans.

[Anacybele]

Arthur, you sound like you're arguing that Ike would not bring them much money when in fact he would, and that's probably another reason he'll be DLC. His games sold poorly, but in the end he's still very very popular and his games were overall liked by those who DID buy them.

IS even admitted he's a fan favorite by describing him as such when his first Heroes banner dropped. "Fan favorite Ike is among them!"

Edited August 12, 2017 by Anacybele

[bethany81707]

3 minutes ago, Arthur97 said:

...Opposite end? I mean, it's a fact that the newer ones sold more, so they are the ones bringing in the dough and new (albeit at times less dedicated) fans.

And that's not necessarily because of their own innate qualities. Besides, if any Classic character could launch a thousand ships, it'd be Ike (which is why I suggested him, sword user #9001, rather than someone interesting like Ephraim).

[Anacybele]

9 minutes ago, NeonZ said:

We've seen her in a cutscene with Chrom (so it can't be battle or victory animations), so she's in the story.

Do we know for sure that that's actually part of the story? It looks just like the Awakening cutscene from Arena Ferox, so it could just be there in some side mode as a nod. Besides, what reason would Lucina have to disguise herself in this game?

[bethany81707]

Just now, Anacybele said:

Do we know for sure that that's actually part of the story? It looks just like the Awakening cutscene from Arena Ferox, so it could just be there in some side mode as a nod. Besides, what reason would Lucina have to disguise herself in this game?

"Hey, look, guys, it's the exact same plot twist as in the originals!"

I will never understand the mindset of making a classic and then referencing it to infinity. And that's things like Super Mario 64 and Kirby Super Star, too.

(Hyrule Warriors also did plot points like "Shiek is Zelda" and "Midna was turned into an imp" again despite them not really working well in plot).

[Folt]

11 minutes ago, phineas81707 said:

"Hey, look, guys, it's the exact same plot twist as in the originals!"

I will never understand the mindset of making a classic and then referencing it to infinity. And that's things like Super Mario 64 and Kirby Super Star, too.

(Hyrule Warriors also did plot points like "Shiek is Zelda" and "Midna was turned into an imp" again despite them not really working well in plot).

In this case, it's more that Chrom and co. are taken from the beginning of Awakening rather than after Awakening. Lucina still hasn't revealed herself as his daughter yet.

Which is why I think Lucina is going to be a lategame character in the story, perhaps joining at some point in-between one of the other focal groups.

[Etrurian emperor]

Okay, it seems we shouldn't be expecting any second gen characters. If someone as iconic as Lucina was considered okay to drop partially because she's a second gen we should probably assume they are really wary about adding such characters.

[Anacybele]

2 minutes ago, Folt said:

In this case, it's more that Chrom and co. are taken from the beginning of Awakening rather than after Awakening. Lucina still hasn't revealed herself as his daughter yet.

Which is why I think Lucina is going to be a lategame character in the story, perhaps joining at some point in-between one of the other focal groups.

Yeah, this is most probably the case since Chrom claims they're not the hero type and this just wouldn't be true in the least bit after Grima's defeated.

[BlizzardWolf95]

35-40 characters, eh?

Damn, after I had just cut my predicted roster down to 25.

Back to the drawing board...

[Arthur97]

31 minutes ago, phineas81707 said:

And that's not necessarily because of their own innate qualities. Besides, if any Classic character could launch a thousand ships, it'd be Ike (which is why I suggested him, sword user #9001, rather than someone interesting like Ephraim).

But it is how things are whatever the reasoning. And, yeah, he would do it no matter how many similarities he and Chrom share.

12 minutes ago, Folt said:

In this case, it's more that Chrom and co. are taken from the beginning of Awakening rather than after Awakening. Lucina still hasn't revealed herself as his daughter yet.

Which is why I think Lucina is going to be a lategame character in the story, perhaps joining at some point in-between one of the other focal groups.

I think she will show up masked earlier, but won't join or reveal herself until later.

8 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Okay, it seems we shouldn't be expecting any second gen characters. If someone as iconic as Lucina was considered okay to drop partially because she's a second gen we should probably assume they are really wary about adding such characters.

To be fair, their thought process on that seems a bit odd.

[Etrurian emperor]

6 minutes ago, Arthur97 said:

To be fair, their thought process on that seems a bit odd.

I could have read over it but I don't recall them giving their thought process. They just said Lucina being a second gen was one of the reasons they considered dropping her without really going into detail as to why being a second gen was a bad thing.

[Ertrick36]

More news?  Hey, it's most certainly welcome.  I'll comment on some quotes from the article, but be warned that there's a lot, which is why I put it in spoilers.

Spoiler

Quote

There were a lot of Nintendo’s titles out there so I was worried it would get buried (laughs)...

We all know Mayro will eclipse any Switch games in the last quarter of the year, but if they can drum up some real hype then maybe the game could meet their hopes as far as sales are concerned.

Quote

It’s still just about 20% of the whole contents though.

If this means what I think it means...  Then either there are a lot of game modes, or there actually is a crap ton of characters (someone said possibly 40?).  Whatever the case may be, it is very exciting.

Quote

In Japan the Treehouse Live was broadcasted at around 3 AM, wasn’t it.

I like to imagine that there's a bunch of nerds in Japan who stay up until 3 AM every year when E3 rolls around just to gleam every bit of news on their favorite games that they can.

Quote

I nonchalantly ended up asking if the waifu and husbando culture is also getting into America (laughs).

You bastards...

Quote

It will be something like ‘Passing through a number of battles!’ In the first place, the mode with replayability is going to have several [consecutive] battles, so if it didn’t have variety people would get bored with it. So when we were going to make something brand-new that’s never been in past Warriors games, someone said “Doesn’t Fire Emblem have the Coliseum after all?” That’s why we included the Coliseum which will have fun battles and gameplay with large-scale special rules.

So it'll be like a mix of challenge and survival mode?  Or just a survival mode with varied enemies?  I'm not sure what's new, because I haven't payed that close attention to the details surrounding Coliseum mode.

Quote

At first I thought that the Level Up scene is an obvious one for Fire Emblem, so I made it to be unskippable. However, someone told me that frequently pausing in an action game feels not quite right.

Other than the Level Up one, the screen also stopped every time a new mission began in the E3 [build], but you can also turn it on or off so that you can move smoothly. 

This makes it sound like they're two different options, but regardless of if that's actually the case, I'm glad to know that I don't need to have either pop-up interrupt the game.

Quote

By the way, people are also discussing about “Why did they give swords to both twin protagonists despite many of the appearing characters also having swords as their weapon type?”

Ah yes, the burning question of the hour.  What do they have to say about that?

Quote

Because there are many sword characters, there were talks during development to give an axe to the boy (Shion/Rowan) and a spear to the girl (Lianna). 

I'd actually have liked that.

Quote

However, the twins are Lords, and while we were designing the game prologue, we wanted those who don’t really play action games to be able to properly play it too, so we wanted to create the right kind of tutorial. In that case, the enemy positions and gameplay experience would change, and it wouldn’t feel right if they would change based on the protagonists’ weapons. We want people to understand the weapon triangle starting from the sword. We want people who don’t even know about Fire Emblem to be able to grasp the rules, so we made [the tutorial] to stay the same regardless of the choices for the two.

I... guess that makes sense.  They wanted to make the beginning like traditional FE, where you're a sword user fighting enemies with axes and maybe a few lance users.  I get that.  Though I still think it would've been cool if they stuck with axe/lance combo.

Quote

No, you cannot change weapon types, so the twins will always wield swords.

Old news, but it's still a little disappointing.

Quote

Chrom was also the very first character we created.

So essentially, he was the frame work for FE Warriors.  Damn, Chrom, you really are getting your due.

Quote

Awakening characters have flying poses in their Warrior Special attacks, but if you look at them from the side it will look like the boxart of the original game.

That's a cool little nod to the artwork.  I wonder if the same applies to characters outside of Awakening.

There's some more about making the moves flashy so that it didn't get overshadowed by Hyrule Warriors sometimes comical Musou attacks, but they had to readjust because they sometimes made the moves too flashy.

Quote

Well, you cannot even remove Lissa from the character roster in the first place.

Yes. Since she’s part of the Shepherds, it would feel weird if Chrom were to appear without her. For example, if only Chrom and Frederick appeared there, it would feel off to us. We also inevitably decided character appearances by considering such character relations.

So we'll get some characters based on their relations to other characters, huh?

Quote

But actually, we used to stray away regarding Lucina.

Wait, what?

Quote

At first there were talks in the development team of, “Should we remove Lucina?” However, after we talked with Nintendo and Intelligent Systems, we reconsidered that, thinking “That’s just not possible after all” (laughs).

It’s an obvious thing; it’s not because we hated her or something, but the reasons are because there are already too many sword characters, and because she’s of the children generation.

Which means, when we were contemplating on whether to add people from the children generation, if Lucina wasn’t added, then we would’ve come to a conclusion that we wouldn’t add anyone from the children generation.

Yeah, it wouldn't make sense to remove Lucina because she actually is a major character.  She's the only character from gen 2 that is relevant throughout the plot, while the rest are just bodies.  Well, regardless...  If they are actually including more 2nd gen units, are they just gonna pick the "trio"?  That'd be more sword users unless they make all the characters use alternate weapons they've canonically used/are able to use (magic for Owain, axes for Inigo, and bows for Selena).  But who else would they even consider using?

Quote

We had the most extreme problem in deciding characters when such talks came. But we overdid it with Lucina (laughs).

But was it as extreme as the debates people have here?

Quote

But when we were creating their actions, there were talks that we had to definitely change the standing loop animations between them. That’s why although their actions are the same, they have different standing loop animations.

And the rule of changing the stance for each character started with Lucina. When many characters appear, those in the same class will end up sharing some similar movements. But since we have decided to change Lucina’s standing loop animation, then we also have to definitely make it the same for all characters even if they share the same class. So Lucina created that rule.

So Lucina forced them to change the idle animations?  Lucina getting more than her due.

Quote

First of all, staff members in our company who like Fire Emblem made a table split by weapon types and ranks from A to C. A is for characters that are popular and important to story. B is for those that are strong or have fond memories. C is for those that would be okay if added. However, eventually for some reason a mysterious S rank got added there.

Cute...

I wonder what that table looked like.  I can imagine a lot of characters fitting in the B and C segments.

Quote

That rank is for people who would make the game strange if not added. As a result, a lot got put into the S rank (laughs).

Can I assume the likes of Lucina and Robin got in this rank?  Also, this criteria is very subjective.

Quote

Too many characters are in S and A ranks, and a lot more characters are added than usual, so we could no longer add characters from the B rank.

I think they probably got all jacked up on coffee or smoked a metric ton of pot during whatever portion of the development process spawned this odd ranking system.  Are there really that many?  I guess it'd explain why they were considering not adding Lucina...

Quote

Character-wise, Great Knights have the trait of mounting a horse while armored. I think a lot of people would think Frederick fits with the Silver Lance, but it was a class that could use three weapon types [in the original game]. And since we also have the non-mounted and armored Knight that will use a spear, Great Knights shall end up appearing with an axe.

I think we could all deduce this about Frederick.  Also, I guess this soft-confirms armor knights?  Insert png expressing my fiegned surprise.

Quote

This game is fully voiced, so we talked about wanting to have all of them speak, and gave them very thick script books (laughs).

So essentially here, they also confirmed that some conversations that appeared in the original games will appear in this game pretty much verbatim, except they'll also be fully voiced.  I do like that they're going the extra mile for this game.

Quote

I’m rather unwilling to say this… but there are still many more characters appearing. Please enjoy predicting who are going to appear! There are still more characters appearing from Awakening!

We only announced characters from Awakening this time, but I think you should have a good grasp on which characters will be coming. I’d like you to also predict how the roster from Fates and Shadow Dragon will be like from here on! Also, this title, which is fully voiced, is filled with love from not only us development staff but also from the voice actors, so please kindly anticipate it!

I know Tharja is a shoe-in, and this also confirms that people thinking Cordelia would be the last Awakening character were just being silly.  Aside from that, the best I can think of are the Trio and Gaius.

And aside from the Fates royals, Caeda, and Camus, I can't really think of anyone who would fit in the criteria they set forth.  It's a little murky, so for now I'll just stick to my guns.

3 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I could have read over it but I don't recall them giving their thought process. They just said Lucina being a second gen was one of the reasons they considered dropping her without really going into detail as to why being a second gen was a bad thing.

They claimed that Lucina being in would mean they'd have to consider including other second gen units as well.  In other words, they thought it'd snowball into a workload too large for them.

I'm a bit confused by that though because Lucina actually is a main character, and her recruitment is unskippable.  I disagree with the notion that including Lucina means that they'd have to include other 2nd gen units, but I think since that's their logic, it might still be possible that they'd include other 2nd gen units.  Though given the pool of popular characters from that group... it's very doubtful.

[The DanMan]

1 hour ago, phineas81707 said:

Yes, because paying more money for a game of what might be questionable gameplay quality after HW/L just for recognisable characters is the solution...

It's a Warriors game. Recent impressions have said that the new gameplay elements give it a bit of an RTS feel. If you don't like the Musou series there's nothing here for you; if you do, it's going to be pretty good.

As for the CYL poll: the game started development in mid-2015. Character rosters for these games are locked in soon after the development starts. The CYL poll means nothing in the context of this game's development.

4 hours ago, Thane said:

uh. I don't dare to hope for so many, but it definitely sounds like there'll be more than 25, at any rate.

7 is close to 5, which is 20% of 25. Of course they'd round down a bit to make it look like there's more; I don't think this statement changes a thing.

[Truthblade]

4 minutes ago, Ertrick36 said:

More news?  Hey, it's most certainly welcome.  I'll comment on some quotes from the article, but be warned that there's a lot, which is why I put it in spoilers.

  Reveal hidden contents

We all know Mayro will eclipse any Switch games in the last quarter of the year, but if they can drum up some real hype then maybe the game could meet their hopes as far as sales are concerned.

If this means what I think it means...  Then either there are a lot of game modes, or there actually is a crap ton of characters (someone said possibly 40?).  Whatever the case may be, it is very exciting.

I like to imagine that there's a bunch of nerds in Japan who stay up until 3 AM every year when E3 rolls around just to gleam every bit of news on their favorite games that they can.

You bastards...

So it'll be like a mix of challenge and survival mode?  Or just a survival mode with varied enemies?  I'm not sure what's new, because I haven't payed that close attention to the details surrounding Coliseum mode.

This makes it sound like they're two different options, but regardless of if that's actually the case, I'm glad to know that I don't need to have either pop-up interrupt the game.

Ah yes, the burning question of the hour.  What do they have to say about that?

I'd actually have liked that.

I... guess that makes sense.  They wanted to make the beginning like traditional FE, where you're a sword user fighting enemies with axes and maybe a few lance users.  I get that.  Though I still think it would've been cool if they stuck with axe/lance combo.

Old news, but it's still a little disappointing.

So essentially, he was the frame work for FE Warriors.  Damn, Chrom, you really are getting your due.

That's a cool little nod to the artwork.  I wonder if the same applies to characters outside of Awakening.

There's some more about making the moves flashy so that it didn't get overshadowed by Hyrule Warriors sometimes comical Musou attacks, but they had to readjust because they sometimes made the moves too flashy.

So we'll get some characters based on their relations to other characters, huh?

Wait, what?

Yeah, it wouldn't make sense to remove Lucina because she actually is a major character.  She's the only character from gen 2 that is relevant throughout the plot, while the rest are just bodies.  Well, regardless...  If they are actually including more 2nd gen units, are they just gonna pick the "trio"?  That'd be more sword users unless they make all the characters use alternate weapons they've canonically used/are able to use (magic for Owain, axes for Inigo, and bows for Selena).  But who else would they even consider using?

But was it as extreme as the debates people have here?

So Lucina forced them to change the idle animations?  Lucina getting more than her due.

Cute...

I wonder what that table looked like.  I can imagine a lot of characters fitting in the B and C segments.

Can I assume the likes of Lucina and Robin got in this rank?  Also, this criteria is very subjective.

I think they probably got all jacked up on coffee or smoked a metric ton of pot during whatever portion of the development process spawned this odd ranking system.  Are there really that many?  I guess it'd explain why they were considering not adding Lucina...

I think we could all deduce this about Frederick.  Also, I guess this soft-confirms armor knights?  Insert png expressing my fiegned surprise.

So essentially here, they also confirmed that some conversations that appeared in the original games will appear in this game pretty much verbatim, except they'll also be fully voiced.  I do like that they're going the extra mile for this game.

I know Tharja is a shoe-in, and this also confirms that people thinking Cordelia would be the last Awakening character were just being silly.  Aside from that, the best I can think of are the Trio and Gaius.

And aside from the Fates royals, Caeda, and Camus, I can't really think of anyone who would fit in the criteria they set forth.  It's a little murky, so for now I'll just stick to my guns.

They claimed that Lucina being in would mean they'd have to consider including other second gen units as well.  In other words, they thought it'd snowball into a workload too large for them.

I'm a bit confused by that though because Lucina actually is a main character, and her recruitment is unskippable.  I disagree with the notion that including Lucina means that they'd have to include other 2nd gen units, but I think since that's their logic, it might still be possible that they'd include other 2nd gen units.  Though given the pool of popular characters from that group... it's very doubtful.

That isn't the impression I got. I read it as that if Lucina wasn't included that they couldn't add anyone else from the second generation.

[bethany81707]

6 minutes ago, The DanMan said:

It's a Warriors game. Recent impressions have said that the new gameplay elements give it a bit of an RTS feel. If you don't like the Musou series there's nothing here for you; if you do, it's going to be pretty good.

I've played Hyrule Warriors and have come considerably close to completing Hyrule Warriors Legends. I just don't really think I'm fond of the Hyrule stuff that's going away and the Fire Emblem stuff that's coming in.

Minute differences, but ones that'll add up.

EDIT: And I'll be playing for a lot of minutes. Yes, that pun needed to be made. We just found a game changing bug in AWBW, damnit, I need some levity!

Edited August 12, 2017 by phineas81707

[Pokechu]

26 minutes ago, The DanMan said:

7 is close to 5, which is 20% of 25. Of course they'd round down a bit to make it look like there's more; I don't think this statement changes a thing.

This may be true, but I think it's more than 25 due to two things;

1. The base roster of HW included 20 different weapons, therefore 20 different movesets. 25 is a really good number for Fire Emblem Warriors, but I think that because they're stressing and mentioning that FEW will have a real big roster that it'd be more than a 5 weapon difference than Hyrule Warriors. Also, the villains were added as free DLC not long after HW released, that makes it 23. So I think that because they had that many movesets for HW, and IIRC they weren't hyping up that game's roster size, they'll probably have around 30 (may be more; may be less) for this game because they're actually hyping up this game's roster size.

2. They know how much the roster means to fans. In another interview it was said that even developers of the game were upset at the limitations (only being able to pick from SD, Awakening and Fates), and that some of them even threatened to quit. Not to mention how in this interview they said they had debates over some characters, Lucina especially, they know that the roster is a controversial subject and really important to fans of the three games. I don't think they'd try to falsely hype us up over the size of the roster.

Edited August 12, 2017 by Pokechu

[Thane]

26 minutes ago, The DanMan said:

7 is close to 5, which is 20% of 25. Of course they'd round down a bit to make it look like there's more; I don't think this statement changes a thing.

You're sticking to 25 characters, then? 

[The DanMan]

1 minute ago, Pokechu said:

This may be true, but I think it's more than 25 due to two things;

1. The base roster of HW included 20 different weapons, therefore 20 different movesets. 25 is a really good number for Fire Emblem Warriors, but I think that because they're stressing and mentioning that FEW will have a real big roster that it'd be more than a 5 weapon difference than Hyrule Warriors. Also, the villains were added as free DLC not long after HW released, that makes it 23. So I think that because they had that many movesets for HW, and IIRC they weren't hyping up that game's roster size, they'll probably have around 30 (may be more; may be less) for this game because they're actually hyping up this game's roster size.

2. They know how much the roster means to fans. In another interview it was said that even developers of the game were upset at the limitations (only being able to pick from SD, Awakening and Fates), and that some of them even threatened to quit. Not to mention how in this interview they said they had debates over some characters, Lucina especially, they know that the roster is a controversial subject and really important to fans of the three games. I don't think they'd try to falsely hype us up over the size of the roster.

It's not falsely hyping people up: what they said is technically true, after all.

2 minutes ago, Thane said:

You're sticking to 25 characters, then? 

Yep; this interview has changed nothing. People are just reading into things.

[Folt]

I'm sticking my roster prediction to 30-35 characters now. 25 at the lowest.

[Thane]

Just now, The DanMan said:

Yep; this interview has changed nothing. People are just reading into things.

What makes you so sure 25 is the limit?

[Pokechu]

3 minutes ago, The DanMan said:

It's not falsely hyping people up: what they said is technically true, after all.

Not really. We saw 7 characters at E3 and they called that 20%. If the roster size is really 25, then 7 would be more like 28%, closer to 30% than 20%. And if they can make 23 movesets for HW, I don't see why they could only make 2 more for this game and brag about how many characters they put in. The difference of 5 being 20% and 7 being 20% is 10 whole characters. It's falsely hyping people up because there's no reason to use 5 as 20% when we saw 7 characters. I'd be pretty disappointed if they were just making it bigger than what it actually is.