Alternate Fire Emblem Game Idea

[LucarioGamer812]

So I love Fire Emblem as most people here do. I honestly love everything about it. But I know myself to an extent and probably others are getting tired of the exact same format of the turn based rpg with RNG this series is founded on. That got me thinking, there's another strategy rpg out there I love, and it's Valkyria Chronicles. So the idea is we combine them, or rather we make Fire Emblem in the style of Valkyria Chronicles in terms of gameplay and perhaps story.

Background information. So I'm assuming most people haven't played Valkyria Chronicles. So the game is similar to Fire Emblem at first glance, it's a turn-based rpg where you move units across the map with units of different classes. This is where the glance ends. What makes Valkyria unique and enjoyable is the ability to free roam whenever you select that unit and perform an action any time, whether it be attack an enemy, heal, or that's really it. The movement is set for each class with a Action Gauge filled with Action Points (AP). Enemies also fire on you (depending on the class) as you move which makes postioning and reaction time key. Another thing is that before an action, the game pauses to an extent, every other unit is paused, but your unit can freely swap between weapons and items while aiming, which is another part of this game, besides healing and repairing terrain, nothing is guaranteed immediately, every attack has a chance to miss and the enemies (and your units) have the chance to dodge attacks. It also has a unique cover system which increases defense when crouching or crawling. Terrain is also interractible with cover being destroyed or rebuilt. Units can die in Valkyria as well, though specific criteria has to be met for them to die (get koed, and then captured by an enemy or are not rescued within 3 turns) with specific criteria there for if your lord dies or you turn out or other objectives are not met which will cause game overs. Also basically you have x amount of Command points a turn, which one CP equals one movement for a unit, 2 if it's a tank (don't think this would be incorporated into Fire Emblem unless a Manakete or something), and then your lord/leader can give various commands to all allies or specific ones, like all units gain defense at the cost of 2 cp or heal this one unit for one cp. There is also battle commands like Sniper support, which could be incorporated as well, also this commands are limited to 1 of each type per turn (so you can do all defense up but then no specific defense up). So basically Valkyria Chronicles is very similar to Fire Emblem but with a unique twist that makes it its own thing.

So how do I think this would work? Well I feel like enemy counterattacking as you move would not be incorporated, however I feel like positioning units in the style of the Action Gauge would work well, though once a unit acts they shouldn't be able to do anything else, with the exception of specific skills, which Valkyria has under potentials, which are class skills learned by leveling up and in units performance in battle, they learn their own specific potential, which can be extremely good or something out of the garbage bin (looking at you Humanitarian). A example would be Pegasus Knights with Galeforce (which would reset their movement to max and give them another action, but limited to once per turn). This brings me to the next point, classes. So Valyria Chronicles 1 only has 5 classes, but that's fine since they serve different roles due to the different setting. But using Fire Emblem's classes we can have Knights be the tanks or possibly specifically be the anti-beast unit but have terrible aim against other enemies, beast units could be very powerful units that resist all normal means of attack, but could be nerfed by their weakness to knights or if there is CP in this game (which I hope not as every unit should be able to move) they would cost more CP, next have Pegasus Knights be high moving but low damage classes (still weak to bows), Bows basically serving as snipers, clerics and dancers could serve the support role like the engineer in Valkyria, being the best at healing allies and giving slight buffs to allies and possibly terrain reconstruction, mages could serve as a middle ground between foot soldier and archers, able to attack at medium range to close range but having similar defenses to the archer, units such as Cavalier would have less movement then pegasus knights, but more firepower and longetivity, with Mercenaries being very similar but on foot (so lower movement) but the ability to going into buildings or other tight areas like Forests. In which terrain could very well affect accuracy and damage like Valkyria, But I feel like the chance of you missing would work well in combat given Fire Emblem is a series based on RNG. A thing I like about Valkyria is that all units of a class level up at the same time meaning all Mages will go from 1-2 at the same time, this is done through the training grounds with BEXP given as map cleared rewards (alongside gold, which can go into "buying" researching weapons from the armory) of which it should vary based on turn count, units defeated, units lost/koed, and other objectives completed (but make it balanced so scouts aren't the only class worth using due to base rushing). The lord would be very crucial on the battlefield if they were able to passively buff allies or do other things (arrow volley perhaps, catapult support?) at the cost of their turn, making it high risk or high reward with a depth of strategy (also could have dancers do the buffing orders while the lord gives combat orders). We could also see more detail in the world like in castles or in towns. Story wise mix-in Fire Emblem with the bit of depth we have in Valkyria Chronicles, as the plot basically is WW2 Fire Emblem with quite a few changes. Also possibly linking this all together is the fact that Laura Bailey, the former voice of Lucina, and who basically defines Lucina's voice in the hearts of many, also voiced a major character in Valkyria Chronicles 1, and also voiced any lines said by that character in any other games that character appears in

So I basically made this to share my idea. I think it could work and would be refreshing, but what's your opinions? Do you think it could be a major redesign for the franchise if they did do this or is it a bad idea changing Fire Emblem and basically taking everything unique about another games series? (It would be a nice crossover game at least, Emblem Chronicles)

Edited September 22, 2017 by LucarioGamer812

[Ertrick36]

I'll continue my LP very soon, don't you worry.

Spoiler

On that note, could you imagine Laura Bailey voicing even half the stuff the "evil Isara" of my LP says?  Like her famous quote, "KILL OR BE KILLED, MOTHER FUCKER"?

So basically it'd be sort of like Echoes' dungeon crawling aspect, but with limited movement, enemy attacks that actually hurt you, polarized strengths/weaknesses, and the ability to move a single unit multiple times (if we were to follow VC down to the letter in that regard)...

Doesn't seem a significant enough of a game changer to warrant concern, given what Echoes already did.  I mean heck, they were once toying with the idea of RTS, so FE X-COM seems not so far-fetched at all.  The biggest changes would come from the HQ elements; the leveling, recruiting, and R&D mechanics.  Orders would also be fairly new, but I think that would generally be seen as rallying done a little differently.  I know they did Battle EXP in PoR, but I'm unsure how (if at all) they'd implement R&D.  I guess they could also have archers or mages shoot at your character while they're running, but then that'd make ranged units super OP for defense, so I dunno.

Story-wise, we'd likely get something like Echoes or Fates, except less convoluted and contrived.  The emotional impact of either without the stupidity of gooron or plot device kingdom.  And if they were to take a page out of VC2/VC3, there'd be a mission for each minor character that would serve as a sort of resolution for their respective character arcs.  So, like, Oboro would get a side mission where she comes to terms with her trauma that would change her personal to something with more general application, or Vaike would get one where he'd get to test his might with Chrom's in some form.

The gameplay aspects could be good or bad depending on how they're handled, but I'd be down 110% for the writing to be more like VC, especially if they do implement character episodes.  Though if they chose VC2 as the inspiration in this regard, I'd eat my shoe.

[kingddd]

Intelligent System has already made a game based off of this kind of mechanic.  It was called Code Name Steam.  It bombed sales wise.

[LucarioGamer812]

7 hours ago, Ertrick36 said:

I'll continue my LP very soon, don't you worry.

It's fine, I always got my copy of Valkyria if I want to play more, this was just an genuine idea I had

  Reveal hidden contents

On that note, could you imagine Laura Bailey voicing even half the stuff the "evil Isara" of my LP says?  Like her famous quote, "KILL OR BE KILLED, MOTHER FUCKER"?

So basically it'd be sort of like Echoes' dungeon crawling aspect, but with limited movement, enemy attacks that actually hurt you, polarized strengths/weaknesses, and the ability to move a single unit multiple times (if we were to follow VC down to the letter in that regard)...

Doesn't seem a significant enough of a game changer to warrant concern, given what Echoes already did.  I mean heck, they were once toying with the idea of RTS, so FE X-COM seems not so far-fetched at all.  The biggest changes would come from the HQ elements; the leveling, recruiting, and R&D mechanics.  Orders would also be fairly new, but I think that would generally be seen as rallying done a little differently.  I know they did Battle EXP in PoR, but I'm unsure how (if at all) they'd implement R&D.  I guess they could also have archers or mages shoot at your character while they're running, but then that'd make ranged units super OP for defense, so I dunno.

Story-wise, we'd likely get something like Echoes or Fates, except less convoluted and contrived.  The emotional impact of either without the stupidity of gooron or plot device kingdom.  And if they were to take a page out of VC2/VC3, there'd be a mission for each minor character that would serve as a sort of resolution for their respective character arcs.  So, like, Oboro would get a side mission where she comes to terms with her trauma that would change her personal to something with more general application, or Vaike would get one where he'd get to test his might with Chrom's in some form.

The gameplay aspects could be good or bad depending on how they're handled, but I'd be down 110% for the writing to be more like VC, especially if they do implement character episodes.  Though if they chose VC2 as the inspiration in this regard, I'd eat my shoe.

Yeah, it would basically just be Valkyria Chronicles with a Fire Emblem coat of paint, which I would think would give us a refreshing take on the series for a game. I forgot to mention character arcs but yeah those could flesh out the story and world a lot.

4 hours ago, kingddd said:

Intelligent System has already made a game based off of this kind of mechanic.  It was called Code Name Steam.  It bombed sales wise.

That is true in a way, it did have Fire Emblem characters in it but wasn't exactly the main point of the game. Plus it had the lion from Wizard of Oz, so I'm 99% certain it was just a fun, random game made to try something different, the problem was how random it was that fans never got hooked on it I'll admit I even tried it before with the demo and I was very dissapointed with it, I feel like if it had been done better it would be a lot better game and then be more popular (this was before I got into Valkyria, so if anything my views of this take on srpg's was low and the fact Valkyria made it so I love this type says something)

[kingddd]

5 hours ago, LucarioGamer812 said:

Yeah, it would basically just be Valkyria Chronicles with a Fire Emblem coat of paint, which I would think would give us a refreshing take on the series for a game. I forgot to mention character arcs but yeah those could flesh out the story and world a lot.

That is true in a way, it did have Fire Emblem characters in it but wasn't exactly the main point of the game. Plus it had the lion from Wizard of Oz, so I'm 99% certain it was just a fun, random game made to try something different, the problem was how random it was that fans never got hooked on it I'll admit I even tried it before with the demo and I was very dissapointed with it, I feel like if it had been done better it would be a lot better game and then be more popular (this was before I got into Valkyria, so if anything my views of this take on srpg's was low and the fact Valkyria made it so I love this type says something)

The thing is, a lot of the mechanics you mentioned were all in Code Name Steam.  Terrain, positioning, defense mechanism with hitting an enemy while they're moving, long range, low range attacks and different classes, specialization, variety of map objectives and mechanics were all in the game.  Hell they even have a dancer style character where you can completely recover a user's action gauge to make them move again even though they used up all their resources.  So really your gameplay proposal is not much different from that game.  Even Mario + Rabbids is influenced by this mechanic.

I think the reason why you didn't enjoy CNS is that it doesn't use the stat mechanics, level ups and rpg gameplay progression system and cosmetics.  Since CNS uses a fixed style system.  The demo imo in CNS is quite awful in general and this is someone who loves this game to death.  The best mechanics of CNS are in much later levels.