Sakurai

When you actually play Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon, there are a lot of fascinating features in the game that you can get deeply caught up with. If you’re just watching someone play behind their back, or just seen a few of the screenshots, I think quite a few people will think that it looks difficult. I think there are two reasons people might feel this way. For one, it being a strategy game, the screenshots tend to look difficult as they are often filled with many characters. Another is the unforgiving system of when an ally falls in battle, that’s it. They will never return or come back to life.

Narihiro

Talking about how the game looks difficult, we tried making the graphics as easy as possible to understand. For example, the Knight visually looks hard and tough any way you look at him. We designed him so that even a quick glance tells players he’s difficult to damage. Since his defensive strength is high, we made it so that it’s easy to understand as you’re playing that he can provide protection for your forces if placed in the enemy’s line of fire. Admittedly there are a lot of characters arrayed on the map, both ally and enemies. The information given to the player is high, so some may feel it’s a difficult game.

Sakurai

It may seem like there’s a ton of information, but actually, I think it’s really just like a game of rock-paper-scissors. In it, there’s an ironclad rule that’s easy to understand - like scissors beats paper, but it can’t beat rock. Understanding that is the first hurdle you cross in Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon.

Narihiro

Yeah. It’s exactly like rock-paper-scissors. The sword is effective towards the axe, but vulnerable to the lance. The lance is effective towards the sword, but vulnerable to the axe. The axe is effective towards the lance, but vulnerable to the sword. These three weapons are in a deadlock no different from rock-paper-scissors.

Sakurai

Like the way the Knight is very strong against the sword and axe, but is utterly feeble against magic attacks. And how flying characters can be shot down, so they are vulnerable to attacks from bows. Even if you have the same attack power, you can score a decisive victory by changing your strategy. Knowing these trade offs unique to the Fire Emblem series and taking advantage of it in your strategy is one the best parts of this game. You can say bow and arrows are highly effective against flying opponents, but it’s not a small increase in fighting ability, rather this inflicts many more times the normal damage. That’s really satisfying when you’re attacking, but it’s frightful when it’s their turn and those arrows are coming at you. I think that’s the exciting part, and the part the many people are attracted to.

Narihiro

But, at the time of the original NES version this system had a few warped areas; for instance the axe was very disadvantageous to play.

Sakurai

Yeah, there was some imbalance.

Narihiro

In the latest Fire Emblem, the rock-paper-scissors concept has become easier to understand. But, the match-up between different weapons is not that simple. Just understanding which measures up against the other is not an automatic key to victory. To make it so players can’t know what will happen, we thought a good way of raising stakes and adding tension to the game would be to include some random elements. So, “A” weapon is not necessarily effective against “B” weapon every time.

Sakurai

Some of the matches are just one-sided. As we talked about a minute ago, though Draug⁸ has high defensive power, he can be beaten with magic. That’s to be expected, because focusing too much on building physical strength… (laughing)

8. Draug: A character added to your friendly forces in the opening scenes of the game. He is classified as a Knight and possesses high defensive strength.

Narihiro

(laughing) However much a body undergoes training for toughness, magic can render such a character flimsy and weak. Also, you might say there are many “accidents” in this game. Though you may know you’re not supposed to do something, if you mess with enemies you shouldn’t touch, or even just press the wrong button, before you know it… aaaaah you done for… (laughing).

Sakurai

Now that is a mystery. Especially so in this version, because the game can display the travel range of an enemy. It’s become much more easy to play.

Narihiro

Thereafter, when the hits and body blows are incoming, you’re praying for survival.

Sakurai

Yeah when I prayed, I managed to dodge an attack! (laughing)

Narihiro

At those moments when you really barely survive you become really attached to that character. (laughs)

Sakurai

It’s lucky if they let you survive but, when you take a direct hit and fall…

Narihiro

They don’t come back alive.

Sakurai

That’s very unique to the Fire Emblem series. It’s a fairly harsh system. Perhaps you can delve into this deeper for Fire Emblem beginners.

Narihiro

In this game, characters are called “Units”. No matter how much you train and develop a friendly Unit, once a character is lost in battle, they never come back. The game does take place in a battlefield, it is very logical.

Sakurai

In other words, lost allies can never come back, even at the very end of the game. Wow, that’s harsh.

Narihiro

This is a world where you don’t know when you will die, so all the characters are trying their utmost to survive. This way of life can be felt through the short dialogues for each of the characters as well.

Sakurai

Sometimes you can make some ridiculously dumb mistake, and end up losing a vital ally.

Narihiro

Yes, some people call beating the game without losing a single Unit “perfect play.” They concentrate on that, and hit reset whenever a Unit goes down. So it’s not uncommon to see players restarting play from the beginning of a level.

Sakurai

Isn’t that common for people who like to play Fire Emblem? (laughs)

Narihiro

No, it’s not common (laughs). Losing is a great lesson I hope players can get through this game. About 50 different characters can join you as friendly Units, but I think you can only feel attached to about 15 of them. If you lose one of them, new encounters with other friendlies will arise. This is quintessential Fire Emblem. And just when you think someone is an enemy, striking up a conversation with that character may swing them around to joining your side.

Sakurai

Speaking for yourself, would you rather have the players progress through the storyline even if that means the allies are falling left and right?

Narihiro

No no, when I have to push the reset button I push it. (laugh) Just recently, I got a little careless, dropped my guard and Caeda took a thrashing.

Sakurai

Caeda is the heroine of the story. Moreover, since she's persuasive enough to pull over several opposing characters to your side, as a friendly Unit she has a very important role.

Narihiro

This time, even without Caeda, other Units can stand in to perform that role. So, she‘s not an absolutely necessary character. Still when Caeda falls, I think it’s natural for you to think ‘oh, well’, (gestures hitting the reset button) and press.

Sakurai

(laughs) So, in this version, if you increase your save points, it’s now possible to save during a battle.

Narihiro

We included that feature to ease play for beginners. At times you may lose a very important Unit, in those cases by placing a marker as a save point on the map, even if disaster strikes, you don’t have to start at the beginning of the level, and it’s possible to restart from that point you saved. Also, the save point functions as a kind of guide. Especially for beginners, following the path of save points makes the battles a little easier, and you can proceed through the game without getting lost. On the other hand, we thought veterans of Fire Emblem could ignore this feature and have fun playing by their own rules. Fire Emblem is unique as it allows many ways to play.

Sakurai

Also, in terms of new features, there’s reclassing Units. This idea was stunning. Such a bold step in game development surprised me.

Narihiro

This was also our answer to people who may react and feel this game is too hard. For example, by changing a Knight to a Mage, etc., you can adjust the balance of your own forces. From Chapter 4 onward, you can use this feature to change the composition of your forces, and to prepare before going into battle.

Sakurai

For instance, if you’ve lost your Knights, you’ll suffer through battle because you don’t have anyone playing defense for your forces. From among your remaining Units you can convert someone to a Knight to shield others.

Narihiro

So even if you lose an important Unit, by changing a Unit’s type, it becomes easier to battle. And in this game there’s various ways you can play… For example, some players create forces using only female characters. Except for Marth, all of the Units are girls! (laughing) Even with that kind of army if you can change the Unit-types, the fighting will become much easier.

Sakurai

Alternatively maybe some players like to gather only the middle age and up male Units and form an army that way. Which reminds me, when I played I immediately changed Curate Wrys into a Myrmidon (laughing).

Narihiro

Hah ha, Wrys! (laughing)

Sakurai

He gets a Myrmidon’s body and keeps his cue-ball round head. The graphics are quite thoughtful really.

Narihiro

Well, we set it so that Unit-type changes would be limited to an extent that they wouldn’t ruin the look of each character. But, changing the Curate to a Myrmidon, that damages his image just a little don’t you think? (laughing).

Sakurai

Changing to the Myrmidon was good, but his power was only 3, and I didn’t discover how useless he was until after trying him out against an enemy…

Narihiro

(laughing)