Prototype Information



CreditsArch, Memento Mori

(Revised: 23rd May 2012)

Around July 2008, the webmaster of the Fire Emblem Universe website, Arch, managed to obtain detailed information about a number of Fire Emblem prototypes (Genealogy of the Holy War, Thracia 776 and Binding Blade) from an online contact, Memento Mori. The information originated from a girl whose father allegedly worked as a programmer for Intelligent Systems (the series’s development team). This girl collected notes about the prototypes over the years, saved as PDFs, albeit written in poor English, with some words left untranslated in Japanese (which is entirely understandable, given that the girl was Japanese).

No screenshots were given and, to this day, it is probably impossible to verify whether the information is true or false. Still, since there remains a chance that the information could be true, it serves as a useful resource as to what the games could have been like. Initially, the intent was to keep this information a Fire Emblem Universe exclusive, however Arch has kindly allowed the information to be hosted on this site as well. Below, you will find my interpretations of the prototype notes.

Warning!
(The details here have yet to be confirmed!)

Character changes

  • Sigurd originally started off as a Junior Lord, just like Celice.
  • Leaf, Ethlin and Lachesis were planned to be Lord characters (if any of them die, you got a Game Over).
  • Cuan started off as a Master Knight, possibly to act as a guardian unit since Sigurd wasn’t a Lord Knight yet.
  • Leptor was originally a Sage and Langobalt was a Great Knight. Leptor’s stats were: 30 Mag, 21 Skill, 20 Speed, 22 Def and 20 Mdef.
  • Lakche had a “very fast” love growth with Shanan. In the release, Lakche has a large bonus (220) with Shanan, but a slow love growth (+1).
  • There was a mention of the “mage girl(s)” of Freege being of the Mage Knight class (original name for this class was Spell Knight). Arch thinks this refers to the enemy mage trio, Vampa, Fetra and Elui.
  • The Forrest Knight mercenary that attacked Aless was called Felgus. Felgus is a playable Free Knight in Thracia 776.
  • Areone and Altenna began as lovers, presumably in an identical manner to Ethlin and Cuan.
  • Hilda had major Fala blood and wielded Falaflame in the final chapter. Maybe the major Dain blood glitch arose because of this change. Also, the Treasure book suggests that Alvis had one elder and another younger sibling, both deceased – perhaps the elder one was originally Hilda?
  • Manfroy had a special class and access to “3 spells.” It always did seem a bit odd that somebody important like Manfroy was a generic Dark Bishop.

Plot changes

  • It seems Diadora was planned to be Vylon’s daughter. I think this sort of makes sense, since Kurth looks a bit young IMO to be Diadora’s father. Although this would have made Sigurd x Diadora incest, unless Vylon wasn’t yet Sigurd’s father (for some reason, this image of a Hannibal-looking Vylon comes to mind).
  • Celice and Yuria automatically became lovers during Chapter 8. In the release, the only way to pair Celice and Yuria is by exploiting glitches.
  • It’s hinted in-game that Lachesis holds some feelings for her brother Eltshan, but apparently Lachesis was planned to be the mother of Eltshan’s son Aless. Yikes, and people think the game has enough incest as is…
  • Which reminds me, there was a mention of Yurius having sex with his mother, Diadora. This could easily have been misinterpreted however.
  • After being defeated in Chapter 9, Trabant was planned to survive and reappear as an enemy in Chapter 10. He was to become a NPC after talking with Altenna, which is a direct parallel to Areone in the release.
  • During Chapter 10, Levin appeared as a physical unit on the map. Talking to him with his son netted the player the Holsety tome (presumably it wasn’t an automatic pass-down).
  • In the Final Chapter, Yuria was not possessed by Manfroy, but instead Alvis was possessed. Both Manfroy and Alvis had to be beaten to rescue Yuria.
  • Additionally, Areone formed a green wall around Yurius in the Final Chapter. The only way to pass through the wall was to recruit him with Altenna. This was probably changed since Altenna could die, making it impossible to complete the game.

Other changes

  • The names of the various knight squadrons were originally derived from Norse mythology, eg. Grandbell’s knights were named Einherjar. They were then changed to be based off German, such as Chalphy’s Blateritter and Lenster’s Lanzaritter (Gruenritter and Lanceritter respectively in the release).
  • Similarly, the name Loputousu, which is based off Loki (or Lopt) from Norse mythology, was originally named Loki. Incidentally, the three other dark spells are named after Loki’s children.