While Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn for Wii did not sell as expected, Nintendo was planning the construction of a sequel quite original: instead of offering the typical turn-based formula, the game would be an RTS. Unfortunately, in the end the project was canceled.
During an interview granted to Dengeki, developers have admitted the existence of a project for a RTS chapter of Fire Emblem, but when the title has begun to take shape the results have not proved convincing enough.
Mr. Kusahara, in particular, believed that the game mechanics did not reflect the expectations of the team, betraying the original spirit of the saga. Surely it was a bold experiment, which perhaps deserved more time in development and balance.
Below you can find the full translated interview:
Kusakihara: Oh? Is it okay to talk about it? Well, the truth is, there was a game we had planned for the Wii after Radiant Dawn, and started development on.
Yamagami: It had me as the producer, and Mr. Kusakihara as the director. It was going to be a real time strategy Fire Emblem game with all sorts of interesting departures from the norm. But, as we approached a finished product, the incredibly picky Mr. Kusahara was not content with it as it didn’t fit the image he had in mind when he played it. While it was incredibly amusing watching him try the product, I don’t think I could’ve reached such a decision so quickly based on that alone. It did show just how passionate he was about the real time system though, but, in my experience, Fire Emblem was always about minimizing casualties as much as possible and thinking about things carefully by the turn. To put together a real time experience in a short time without these considerations and make a judgement based on that was a little premature in my opinion. So, in the end, development froze.
Maybe Nintendo might reconsider the idea of a RTS chapter of Fire Emblem in the future: would you be interested in the same? Let us know in the comment section below.
In another news, Super Mario Run approaches the milestone of 150 million downloads, but apparently Fire Emblem Heroes has produced a greater amount of revenues despite far more modest numbers, in this case less than a 1/10th of the download. The news was revealed in view of the financial reports published by Nintendo, the reporter Takashi Mochizuki has put it out on Twitter.
Nintendo chief: # of Fire Emblem downloads less than 1/10 of Mario, but revenue is bigger than Mario.
— Takashi Mochizuki (@mochi_wsj) April 27, 2017
