The upcoming release of Fire Emblem Engage marks the 17th entry in Nintendo's long-running strategy RPG series. The series has built itself a vast roster of fan-favorite characters over the years and continues to find ways to include them within new releases. However, recent entries have had the tendency to rely a little too heavily on fan excitement over past characters as marketing tools, and Fire Emblem Engage embodies this is issue with its emphasis on legacy characters appearing as Emblem Heroes.
By no means does Fire Emblem Engage look like a bland or boring game—quite the opposite. It looks to be the next logical step for the series with improved home base mechanics featured in Somniel, the engage mechanic adding depth to its strategic gameplay, and a beautiful art style that captures the majesty of the nations of Elyos. However, these aspects should be allowed to stand on their own without having to rely on pre-established characters to make the game more recognizable, and thus, more marketable.
Fire Emblem's Commitment to Fanservice Holds it Back
This trend of over reliance on fanservice to sell games started with Fire Emblem Awakening back in 2013. As a last-ditch attempt to save the dying franchise, Fire Emblem Awakening went all-in on catering to existing fans while trying to draw in new players with recognizable names like Marth—the identity Lucina adopts in the first half of the game. It also included a lot of post-launch DLC which added even more nostalgic characters like Ike, Lyn, and Roy. While this gambit successfully saved the franchise and made it more popular than ever, it also created a formula that developer Intelligent Systems has yet to break from, and it is beginning to get stale.
The next entry in the series, Fire Emblem Fates, attempted to replicate the success of its predecessor by sticking to the familiar formula Fire Emblem Awakening had established. The result made Fire Emblem Fates feel too similar to Awakening, as it relied on the children mechanic from the previous entry to include same-but-different iterations of the characters from that game as second generation recruits. This mechanic felt very forced, as the explanation for why the children of Fire Emblem Fates' characters were recruitable did not make as much sense as it did in the previous title. As a result, the remixed characters passed off as new ones were a very blatant appeal to fans of Fire Emblem Awakening.
Fire Emblem Engage's Emblem Heroes Risk Overshadowing its New Characters
Much of the discussion surrounding Fire Emblem Engage has been about its inclusion of legacy characters as Emblem Heroes. Fans have been speculating on possible characters its DLC expansion pass could add as well as the role in which these Heroes will play within the game's story. With a focus seemingly on fanservice, Fire Emblem Engage runs the risk of stealing the spotlight from its original characters by placing too great of an emphasis on its Emblem Heroes. If the series continues this past-focused trend, it will soon be stuck recycling old characters, as no new characters will stand out enough to be worth bringing back in future entries.
The Fire Emblem series is digging itself into a hole by constantly bringing back old characters that draw attention away from the new ones. It creates a sort of power creep that forces Intelligent Systems to constantly one-up itself with grandiose shows of fanservice in each new entry. This method is unsustainable and only makes original characters feel more disappointing when compared to legacy ones. As such, returning characters should be limited to spin-off and side games like Fire Emblem Warriors and the mobile game Fire Emblem Heroes to preserve the originality and innovation of the mainline series.
Fire Emblem Engage will release on January 20, 2023 for the Nintendo Switch.
