How would you feel that the next main line Fire Emblem was the game purely a social simulation?
While such a drastic change is almost certainly not in the cards, the identity crisis Fire Emblem is currently facing means change has to come. While Engage has 1.61 million sales from March 2023 is respectable for the franchise, marking a return to 3DS-era numbers after rumors of blockbuster status when Three Houses sold nearly 3 million in its first fiscal year. The reason for this difference is simple: Three Houses expanded its fan base by shifting its focus away from its strategic elements, while Engage doubled down on its strategic roots.
It’s pretty embarrassing for any franchise when it takes a spike in popularity for reasons that run counter to its traditional formula. However, those who already play in niche genres can be quickly reshaped by such a phenomenon. Turn-based strategy games—one such genre—rarely approach million-seller status. Fire Emblem took over two decades to achieve this despite being arguably the biggest player in the universe. Awakening famously saved the franchise from inevitable doom by rallying a fanbase around its marriage system that later evolved into a Persona-encoded social simulation of the Three Houses.
Simplifications like oversized bland cards and the removal of the distinctive weapon triangle would have buried every other entry but the Three Houses, but the average player wasn’t focused on this; they wanted to drink tea with their chosen lord, romance their favorite student (insert collar pull here), and manage their monastic tasks. If social media chatter around the franchise wasn’t already focused on the characters before this pivotal Switch entry, it became an all-out delivery war upon release. Some fans of older Fire Emblem formulas were left behind in the process, but the newfound audience doubled the reach of the franchise. Fire Emblem became synonymous with its social elements and there was no going back if Nintendo wanted to maintain the momentum of its popularity.
Three House characters look and act like people, while Engage characters look and act like caricatures.
But the comeback is exactly what Nintendo tried with Engage.
Perhaps even more fittingly, Engage tried to pick up a papaya and eat it. For my money, the crucial moment-to-moment decision-making – especially around the titular “engage” mechanic – resulted in Intelligent Systems’ most engaging combat system to date, but it also alienated many new fans who showed up for the immersive social event narrative.
That is if they appeared at all, as the game’s narrative and writing quality were widely criticized, and there were fewer meaningful social systems through which to interact with the characters. Even the characters themselves did not match the modern demands of Fire Emblem. Three House characters look and act like people, while Engage characters look and act like caricatures. This audacity works well for the traditional Fire Emblem formula where most characters only have plot relevance during their opening mission (so they can die freely afterwards), but that philosophy runs counter to what made its predecessor sensationally popular.
Would it then be so hard to say that I can enjoy a Fire Emblem game that is all about socializing?
It might seem obvious that Intelligent Systems should simply copy and paste the Three Houses formula for the next Fire Emblem mainstay, but this tactic has been spectacularly well-established in the past. Destiny copied the homework of Awakening, but painted between the lines with less memorable characters and ship bloat. It’s also worth noting that Heroes, Fire Emblem’s biggest earner, has simplified combat to the point where it plays second fiddle to seasonal character outfits.
So change has to come. Or more accurately, the franchise must adapt to the needs of its largest player base, lest it risk returning to its dangerous pre-Awakening state. To which I ask again: what if the next Fire Emblem game fully embraced the social sim, even to the point of abandoning its turn-based strategy roots?
Let’s consider three possibilities for what that future might look like:
- If you remove combat entirely, then you have to face the problem that war is still the narrative pillar of the franchise. Perhaps a social simulation in this setting could act as a commentary on the impact that external warfare has on the citizens within the kingdom. Think of this as a story that takes place during the turn-based Fire Emblem game you usually control. Character choices influenced by your interactions could lead to outcomes like eternal death (you might fail to convince them not to join the war) or romance. The point is that many of Fire Emblem’s conceptual ideas and thematic elements can live on in a format that eschews combat. Combat-based entries could carry over to remakes of classic games in the Echoes lineage.
- For a less nuclear option, turn-based combat could be an additional offshoot of the social simulator’s story. You can choose to send armies to automatically fight for you to give you extra time for social tasks, while players who want to score points on the battlefield can do so. Balancing storytelling and pacing in this format would be difficult to achieve, and creating two games in one is something developers don’t often do. Still, the ‘do what you want’ model worked for games like Fantasy Life so maybe there’s a way to implement it here.
- They could change the fighting genre to one more accessible to the average player. I mentioned the Persona styles of the Three Houses earlier, but what if the concept was taken to its logical conclusion and made an end to the medieval Persona? Frankly, it would take a bit of tweaking to fit the traditional JRPG dungeons into the slots where the main story beats in Three Houses take place and fill the temporary content with Mementos -esque dungeon crawling. We might even go so far as to take the action route, something that Three Hopes has already proven viable.
This isn’t to say that I’m advocating for a future where Fire Emblem isn’t a bastion for turn-based strategy fans. However, when I think about the Switch’s two main entries, I’m faced with a conundrum. Despite the major issues with Three Houses’ combat design, while I adore Engage’s, I still prefer the former because of the bonds I’ve built with its student body. Would it then be so hard to say that I can enjoy a Fire Emblem game that is all about socializing?
I suppose the answer to that question could only ever come in the form of Nintendo greenlighting such a project, but the more I thought about the possibility, the more interested I became that the game existed.
Would you play a Fire Emblem game that focuses primarily on social elements instead of turn-based combat? Or do you still swear by a solid triangle with weapons?
