Few Nintendo-adjacent franchises have a history as long and storied as the Fire Emblem series. The tactical RPG series from developer Intelligent Systems has seen releases on nearly every Nintendo console dating all the way back to the original Nintendo Entertainment System.
However, the franchise has not always been as popular or successful as it is now. It wasn’t until the seventh game in the series that Nintendo had enough confidence in it to release it in the west, meaning that about a third of the series has never had an official English release.
Intelligent Systems has worked to shrink this gap in the franchise for international audiences by remaking some of the earlier games in the series, namely Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon (a DS remake of the very first entry in the series) and Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia (a 3DS remake of the second game, Fire Emblem Gaiden).
If Intelligent Systems was interested in continuing this trend, I would argue that there has never been a better time for a remake of the fourth Fire Emblem title, Genealogy of the Holy War.
Genealogy was a bit of an experimental entry in the series that tried things that have never been seen in any other Fire Emblem games since. One of its distinguishing features is the size and interconnectedness of the maps.
Rather than following the standard Fire Emblem formula, where each chapter has one story beat which leads to one battle on a bespoke map, Genealogy instead uses large, expansive maps that give the battles a much grander sense of scale. Multiple major story beats happen mid-chapter, objectives change as you progress across the map, and the end point of each chapter is the starting point of the next. It may not be an open-world game, but it certainly evokes the feeling of a single, continuous world that you get from a good open-world game.
A remake of Genealogy could make great use of the Switch 2’s processing power to fully realize the potential of these maps. A fully open-world Fire Emblem might not be feasible (although it would be interesting to see what it would look like), but I could see Intelligent Systems building several large, detailed maps similar in scale to the kingdoms in Super Mario Odyssey, then following the structure of the original game by having multiple battles and story scenes play out in different parts of the map.
A larger-scale Fire Emblem game would also allow for a new layer of strategy in battles. The increased map and army size would make standard Fire Emblem gameplay a bit tedious, as players would be spending several turns at a time simply moving their fighters across the map one by one. Instead, Intelligent Systems could capitalize on the Joy-Con 2’s mouse feature and incorporate some light real-time strategy elements.
Players could organize fighters into small units and order them to automatically move to various map objectives à la Unicorn Overlord. Then, when two opposed units meet, the player would engage in a small-scale turn-based battle that is more in line with classic Fire Emblem. The game could also be punctuated with occasional larger turn-based battles, perhaps as climactic ends to each chapter.
What do you think? Is Genealogy of the Holy War worth remaking? Should the remake have a title that’s slightly less of a train wreck? Would RTS elements enhance a Fire Emblem game, or take away what makes it special? Head on over to our Discord and tell us your thoughts!
Featured Image: Nintendo/Intelligent Systems (via Fandom)
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