FE Fates Original Proposal Translation/Commentary – 25th Anniversary

The Making of Fire Emblem: 25 Years of Development History contains some fun trivia regarding the series. You can find all the information I translated thus far in one place here.

This is a brief post about a Fire Emblem if (Fates) design document from December 2012 that was used as a framework for the entire game then on. I provide the translated image below, but the original/raw scan can be found here. The transcript is at the end of the post. See below for some commentary.

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Enjoy!

Just some things of note here:

• Hoshido/Nohr (Byakuya[White Night] Anya [Dark Night]) were the Kingdoms of Light and Dark respectively. (Hikari and Yami).
• Three paths were emphasized from the beginning, rather than the third coming in later.
• They got to work on this game soon after Awakening’s Japan release (April 2012). Most of the framework remained, meaning that Fates got the groundwork laid out just seven months later.
• The word “Prince (王子)” is specified, so perhaps gender was not selectable/customizable at first. However it can be read as “royal child” too, I suppose. But the word often used for female Kamui/Corrin (Princess 王女) is not used.

Fire Emblem Awakening started off as “Fire Emblem Fin” – FE 25th Anniversary

The Making of Fire Emblem: 25 Years of Development History contains some fun trivia regarding the series. You can find all the information I translated thus far in one place here.

This is a brief post about how Fire Emblem Awakening started as Fire Emblem: Fin. This makes sense, considering the common knowledge of how Fire Emblem Awakening was to be the last Fire Emblem game if it did not sell well (and indeed was referenced in the same interview).

Below shows the concept work. Originally it was called Fire Emblem Fin and went through plenty of names. The shot below shows “Children from the Brink” as one possibility (Literally, it translates to “Children from the End [of time].” The two silhouettes also resemble Ike on the right and…Stefan? It looks like a silhouette of his official Radiant Dawn artwork, at least. Was it going to be in Tellius? Or maybe a game that had people from all over? We’ll never know. It is just a concept work after all, so that wouldn’t really mean much. If one can guess who the silhouette in the bottom left is, (likely from Tellius), then all the better.