Fire Emblem director has no idea why the series has exploded in popularity, discusses Three Houses' removal of the weapon triangle

Fire Emblem started off its run all the way back in the Famicom days, but fans outside of Japan wouldn't get to experience the franchise until many years later. Unfortunately, the series seemed to have trouble finding its footing outside of Japan, and was put on life support. Nintendo decided to work on one more installment in the franchise, and if it didn't sell well, Fire Emblem would be benched indefinitely.

That next installment ended up being Fire Emblem Awakening for the 3DS, which was a huge breakthrough entry for the franchise. It not only saved Fire Emblem in general, but it gave birth to the series' explosive popularity in both NA/EU. What lead to Fire Emblem finally having its moment in the sun? GameSpot asked director Toshiyuki Kusakihara, and he's just as clueless as the rest of us!

"I actually don't know why it's been so accepted by so many people all over the world. We don't have the confidence to say: 'Oh! As long as we keep doing this thing, then the game will be popular!' There's nothing like that."

The series' recent popularity continues with Fire Emblem: Three Houses, which has been showered with praise from critics and players alike. Its been quite some time since Fire Emblem appeared on a home console, which lead to the developers wanting to change things up. One of the biggest revamps came from the removal of the series' tried-and-true weapon triangle. Kusakihara explains why the team felt it was time to dump the feature.

"We think that the weapon triangle is somewhat of a stylized system, it isn't really realistic. If you have a situation where a novice axe user takes down an advanced lance user, well, that makes sense? Probably not. So, we wanted to make something that comes across as more realistic to warfare and have players develop their weapons skills individually."

There's a lot more to check out in the full GameSpot interview, which dives deeper into Three Houses, as well as Fire Emblem in general. Check out the interview here.