Fire Emblem If will add new character powers, a casual-aimed “Pheonix” mode and weapons that don’t break.
Fire Emblem: Awakening was about as big of a hit as the Fire Emblem franchise has ever had. The arguable source of its success? A collection of new features, modernizations and play modes aimed directly at making the franchise more palatable to wider audiences. Now it’s looking like it’s follow-up, the recently announced Fire Emblem If, will be pushing even harder to court less hardcore players.
According to recent reports, Fire Emblem If will apparently be bringing back the “Casual”difficulty that the series debuted in Awakening. Prior to Awakening, characters who died in battle stayed dead permanently. While playing the Casual mode however, dead characters revived at the end of each battle. In addition to Casual mode, If will apparently also have a new “Phoenix” mode where slain characters revive at the end of each turn.
The game will likewise completely do away with breakable weapons, while adding in new “Dragon Pulse” skills that will allow select characters to make permanent alterations to the battlefield such as building bridges, removing mountains and more. Add in the fact, that the game will be split into two versions (White Kingdom/Black Kingdom) and Fire Emblem If is looking to like be one of the most radical entries in the franchise in years.
The big question, of course, is how its fans will react to these proposed changes. Speaking personally, I like the idea of adding more options for players who’d rather not deal with the franchise’s more merciless elements. That said, I will admit that removing the breakable weapons does somewhat rub me the wrong way. Granted, weapons in Awakening were easy to replace, so this could just be seen as removing that bit of busy work. Even so, it still smells a bit to me like fixing something that’s not broken. What do you guys think?
Source: Famitsu via Siliconera
