Nintendo/Intelligent Systems on creating Fire Emblem Echoes, bringing Fire Emblem to Switch & more

Coming from a Eurogamer interview with Nintendo's Kenta Nakanishi...

"When Kenta's father passed away, among his possessions were Fire Emblem Gaiden, complete with a save file. Kenta shares some insight into how finding this left a lasting impact.

"Back then I'd be playing it and thinking of him. Fire Emblem Gaiden means a lot to me because of this, and I've played it through many times. Despite playing it so much, the story and the characters' personalities didn't leave much of an impression on me - at that time a game's story was mainly included in its manual, and I didn't have the manual for Fire Emblem Gaiden when I was playing. With more recent Fire Emblem games, more and more people are playing because they enjoy the stories and the relationships between the characters."

On remaking Gaiden as Fire Emblem Echoes...

"One of the goals with this game was to let people who were only introduced to Fire Emblem from Awakening onwards enjoy the older games of the series, so basically we made the game without changing the core mechanics of Fire Emblem Gaiden. The weapons triangle actually doesn't match well with the design of this game, and if we were to do it. We would have needed to do things like add axe characters to Alm's army, or give some types of soldiers the ability to have multiple weapons. If we did that though, it would end up being too different from the original Fire Emblem Gaiden, so we decided not to implement it.

As for the support system, if we allowed marriage then it would affect Alm and Celica's story, so we didn't include that system. However, the support conversations themselves are helpful for learning more about the relationships between characters, so we have implemented that in this game."

On why another Fire Emblem installment was made for the 3DS (coming from Nintendo's Hitoshi Yamagami)

"There were still things we wanted to do on Nintendo 3DS. At the point we started development for this game, it was still too early to start development for Nintendo Switch, and yet too late to make a brand new game for Nintendo 3DS considering we would later be working on a game for Nintendo Switch. That makes the choice pretty clear, right? [laughs]"

After development on Fire Emblem Fates finished, Intelligent Systems came to us saying that there were a number of things they weren't able to do in Fates, and that they wanted to make another game for Nintendo 3DS. Unfortunately, this was right around the time when we were starting to think about the new game for Nintendo Switch. We discussed what would be possible to make in the short time until the development of the new game for Nintendo Switch really starts, and we decided it would be best to work on a remake instead of a brand new title."

On bringing Fire Emblem to Switch (from Intelligent Systems' Masahiro Higuchi and Nintendo's Hitoshi Yamagami)

"I'm very happy that we were able to announce a new game for the home console, Nintendo Switch. I'm confident that the gameplay of Fire Emblem hasn't lost anything by being on handhelds such as Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS or Nintendo 3DS. By returning to a home console though, we can deliver a title with a level of quality higher than on a handheld not only in terms of game system, but also in terms of graphics and audio too." - MH

In that sense, by developing for Nintendo Switch, we can give players the option to enjoy playing on a home console on a big screen, as well as being able to play anywhere they like on a handheld, which is great for today's busy users. I think it's the ideal console for the Fire Emblem series." - HY