Did you hear the big news about Fire Emblem Fates? Of course, we now know that the game has added same sex marriage, hitting headlines in gaming sites everywhere. However, that isn’t even the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the shockers in Fire Emblem Fates.
Bear in mind, while we have mostly anons to thank for these spoilers, these anons are actually playing the game itself. One particularly famous streamer, Hamayama, seems to have connections to have advance preview copies of the game. Some of them have even started on the 3rd storyline, but we’ll get more into that later.
Now, in Fire Emblem Awakening, Intelligent Systems introduced a new casual mode to entice new fans. Previous games had permadeaths that would make you lose valuable characters, which left you in a double bind if you set them up to have children with your other soldiers. Casual mode broadened the appeal of Fire Emblem Awakening, but some core fans complained the edge of the game was gone.
Fire Emblem Fates reintroduces permadeaths, particularly in the Nohr route, but does so in surprising ways. While it is apparently possible to save some characters from death, many of them are inevitable and part of the story. Hence, there are actual cutscenes for these, just like what you are about to see if you scroll down.
Spoilers follow below, and this comes with a trigger warning. If you are willing, watch the video below.
If you didn't want to click the video, based on the preview, it shows Xander, eldest of the Nohr royal family siblings (Marx in the Japanese version), striking down his youngest sister Elize. If you play the Nohr path, Elize comes in at the last minute to protect you from his blade, but at the cost of her own life. This death was scripted, so that there is a cutscene, and there is nothing you can do to change this.
The game’s writer, Shin Kibayashi, has written detective stories, and many gruesome deaths, across manga, TV shows, even the theater, and he certainly did not disappoint here. Just to give you some more samples of death scenarios in the game:
· Gunter falls off a bridge.
· Kaze dies protecting Kamui.
· Flora commits suicide after betraying the player character.
· Camilla can die, but no one has shared the details yet.
· Sakura is ripped to shreds by a group of monsters.
Some deaths are apparently turn based. So, for example, if you don’t beat the boss in 7 turns, Aqua will die. These deaths serve to motivate players to play well, to ensure avoidable deaths don’t happen, but more importantly, will entice them to buy the third story.
We already knew this in part, but for the third story, the player character, joined by Aqua, sides with neither country. Now, it turns out, that’s because they identified a third country playing both sides, Touma. The third storyline, then, is a struggle to learn the truth about Touma and their mysterious leader, Hydra.
The player character will eventually recruit both his siblings from Hoshido and Nohr, so that you all work together to find and purge this threat. No word if permadeaths are a part of this campaign as well.
Fire Emblem Fates will be released in the US and Europe in 2016. The Japanese versions, Fire Emblem If, will have its 3rd storyline officially released next month.
