Sakurai

We have some extra time, so can I pull out a few more questions?

Narihiro

Yes (laughing).

Sakurai

Something in particular got my attention… In the first stage of this game, when Marth’s castle is under heavy attack by enemy forces, in order for Marth to escape, you have to designate someone to disguise himself as Marth, to act as a decoy. So by selecting one Unit and dressing it up as Marth, you draw enemy attention to the fake Marth, and this lets the real Marth escape. So I suppose the person who’s made into a Marth decoy never comes back?

Narihiro

(very apologetically)… that character never comes back.

Sakurai

(looking very disappointed) …oh, ok I see.

Narihiro

But wait, we just talked about a spoiler! (laughs)

Sakurai

Well we’re just talking about the beginning scenes, so can you overlook it this one time?

Narihiro

Who did you select as the decoy?

Sakurai

I chose Jagen without a second thought…

Narihiro

Really! You did that!

Sakurai

It would be impossible to make an elderly body look like Marth in a disguise, or so I thought! (laughs) But the enemy was totally fooled.

Narihiro

(laughing) Before selecting him as decoy you took his weapon¹² didn’t you?

12. Jagen’s weapon: Jagen appears as an ally at the start of the game, and is outfitted with the Silver Lance, a powerful weapon which is rare in the beginning stages.

Sakurai

Taking away his weapon and then sacrificing him as decoy? Now that would be too cruel!

Narihiro

Very kind of you.

Sakurai

Truth be told, I just forgot to hold on to his weapon…

Narihiro

(laughs)

Sakurai

For players who know Fire Emblem well, Jagen is a character you don’t develop too much.

Narihiro

Yes that’s true.

Sakurai

But, during the early stages of the game, he’s also a character that can really come to your rescue.

Narihiro

He’s one retainer you must depend on, and without Jagen, the Fire Emblem story will not begin to unfold.

Sakurai

Despite that I ended up choosing him. Only later did I realize Jagen would not be coming back.

Narihiro

Can I ask a few questions?

Sakurai

Yes, please.

Narihiro

About Super Smash Bros. Brawl; amazing that you did it, first thinking up so many different fighting techniques and then giving names to each and every one. That’s fantastic work.

Sakurai

You say it like you’re so amused! (laughs)

Narihiro

(laughing) What’s more, in the latest Smash you’ve added even more characters.

Sakurai

Yeah there are a colossal number of characters… Enough to form an army in Fire Emblem, since there’re around 40.

Narihiro

No really, I applaud Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Thanks to your work the reputations of Marth and Ike¹³ have grown beyond our expectations.

13. Ike: The main character that appears in Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance (9th of the Fire Emblem series, 3rd installment released in the US).

Sakurai

Speaking of him, there’s one thing I have to tell you about Marth. Honestly, when making Super Smash Bros. Brawl, I had a heck of a shock.

Narihiro

A shock? Why, what happened?

Sakurai

In the latest production of Fire Emblem Marth has undergone some major design changes, hasn’t he?

Narihiro

Ah!

Sakurai

The part about the design changing is fine. Actually, I think that’s very good. The thing was, the first time I saw Marth’s redesign was when I went to present you the Marth I made for Super Smash Bros. Brawl!

Narihiro

My apologies! (laughing)

Sakurai

If someone had told me a little sooner we could’ve mirrored the new Marth in Super Smash Bros. Brawl! (laughs)

Narihiro

Right, at that time it was too late to make changes.

Sakurai

Our Marth was finally finished, I show it to you saying “What do you think of this new Marth?”, you come back and say “actually, we have something to show you too”, I was speechless. Like, “What!?”

Narihiro

When we were going to release the illustration of the new Marth, there were so many differing opinions among the staff…

Sakurai

You mean about which direction the design should develop?

Narihiro

We didn’t think there would be big changes to the design. But we thought we should avoid reusing the old Marth exactly as he was. To ensure that no one would feel Marth had changed too much, we approached the design intending to make only minor changes. And that’s how we settled on this current illustration of Marth.

Sakurai

That fine balance in recreating old characters can be difficult. When making Super Smash Bros. Brawl, we thought about taking the same characters from before and modernizing them to look cool, but the feelings people had about each character differed for everyone. Sometimes for those who had played the original version, they tend to show negative feelings towards modernized redesigns.

Narihiro

Still I should have told you sooner about the upcoming changes. Now Fire Emblem is in its 11th installment, and the character roster expands every time. Just among allies, an additional 50 or so characters keeps getting added. Also even among opposing forces, there’re now a lot of characters whose presence penetrates the game. Overall a huge number of characters have appeared up to this point in the series.

Sakurai

At least 500 just among allies, simply giving all of them names has become a real task, right?

Narihiro

So we’re trying to make best use of the characters we’ve had up to now and from these we’re hoping to be able to produce a new game.

Sakurai

How about Pikmin?

Narihiro

(laughs) That might be good!?

Sakurai

I’m only kidding! (laughs)