#jugdral remake speculation

[markoftheasphodel]

I have to say that what with the recent FE4-themed Lost Lore and the upcoming FE4 banner, FEH is really honing in on how the core of Gen1 is the bonds between House Chalphy, House Leonster, and House Nordion. 

This IMO bodes well for a remake, particularly since Cipher gave us more fodder in from that angle. There is a LOT going on in Gen1-- the drama with House Jungby Yngvi, all the other Granvalle noble shenanigans, the House Silesse drama... and oh, yeah, Isaac and Verdane. Good, fine. But it’s noteworthy IMO that the Fujimori manga despite its “comic” slant really NAILED the emotional heart of Gen1 without even covering the Silessian Civil War, or the Yied Massacre, or the Belhalla betrayal itself because it did a good damn job of adapting a wide-ranging story and zeroing in on the sextet of doomed heroes and ladies at the core of the action(s).

An FE4 remake that hammers home the “three heroes” dealie, especially in the wake of FE16, will no doubt upset fans who want more depth and exploration of Verdane or the Isaachians or the other noble houses in Grannvale. I get that. I also don’t think people clamoring for Verdane to finally get its day in the sun beyond “we made Jamke super-hot and hired Link’s VA” are an audience sizable enough or spendy enough that IS gives a damn about giving them much. But beyond that, adapting material-- and a full-scale remake of FE4 to modern tastes would indeed be an adaptation-- is a balancing act, and what’s left out is sometimes as important to the success of an adaptation and what’s amped up. Yes, every character in the fairly small FE4 cast does indeed have his or her own story, and a remake may feature supports or Paralogues that finally allow characters like Dew and Chulainn and the Xmas Cavs to shine, but the focus thus far in auxiliary materials has definitely been on the families of the three heroes with a couple of Silessians on the periphery.

Genealogy of the Holy War 2.0, if made, will be its own beast even as FE15 is in many ways something completely new erected upon the bones of FE2 Gaiden. A remake that centers itself on the drama of the Lord Trio and their ladies may not be the FE4 remake of everyone’s dreams, but it could indeed be very, very good and moving because the core of what’s there is solid even though its execution in the SNES game itself was sometimes lacking. (I remind you, Quan and Eldigan have. No. Dialogue.)

It’s OK. I think we’re going to get a remake, I think we’re getting some pretty solid clues about what’ll be prioritized, and it may not be what we fantasized about but it could still be very, very awesome.

[deetvar-moved]

So i may have asked this before, but if/when FE4 gets remade, do you think they'd keep the giant maps or do you think it'd cut them into smaller chapters? Also should there be something akin to the memory prisms where we get bits of the backstory like Briggid getting lost as a child or Quan, Sigurd and Eldigan in their younger days or the dynamic between Lord Ring, Byron, and Prince Kurth?

They probably will keep the large maps, and probably will get the backstory events translated as memory prisms. At least based on what SoV did. 

[gascon-en-exil]

Was not expecting FE16 to have DLC spread out well into next year. I suppose it’s a good thing that the only promised major story content will be coming 9+ months after the game’s release, when it would be utterly absurd to expect people to wait that long for something as banal and probably contrived as a golden route where nobody dies. My thought is that it’s instead some postgame story that ties into an earlier game/setting in an oblique way, in the manner of Fates and Echoes both calling back to Awakening.

[four-loose-screws]

Hi! Just wanted to ask... if ever they would remake a fire emblem game, what would you want it to be like? Personally, I’m hoping they’ll give us some news on a remake soon (FE4 plz). It’s so exciting to speculate, ha ha.

I thought about this ask a lot when I first got it, and it came at perfect timing when we thought we might get an FE4 remake announcement within a Nintendo Direct, I just… never did the writing the answer part. Thanks for waiting, anon!

Overall, I think of myself as person who is pretty boring to have a "What do you want to see in a remake?" conversation with, because I just tend to highlight the one, two, or however many things I really want changed, then I'm happy to just see what the devs come up with.

That, and, I still don’t really see the point of remaking anything in full color if the graphics aren’t dated, which translates to roughly the GBA era and onwards. Just release the OG version as a download title with maybe a speedup button depending on the game. I just can’t bring myself to care much about remakes if the original doesn’t have outdated graphics or isn’t too slow. I try, but my brain just screams “meh.”

That being said, my direct answer to the question “What would you want it to be like…” is I would just like the devs to keep doing what they are doing! I know, not an exciting answer really, lol. But I think the evolution of FE remakes is a great example of how devs can improve their remakes over time! FE11 was rocky. But you know, first attempts are first attempts. FE12 saw where FE11 was rocky, and made improvements. FE15 now understood to add more rather than less to the game thanks to FE12, and so went all out considering the scale of the project was still pretty small as a non-main title. This gave us gorgeous graphics, voice acting, expanding on the cave exploration, enriching the original characters with backstory and so on... Some of the individual choices made aren’t my favorite (i.e. keeping the avoid rates on special terrain squares SO HIGH!!) … but overall, 10/10 on the direction. Just keep doing what you are doing, FE.

There is one big specific request I have, though. I can’t have zero wishes of my own for a remake, right? What I want most is a “warp between conquered castles” function in FE4. Add that to modern graphics and speed, and I’d be pretty happy if it ended there. Of course I’d expect a number of supports/conversations more akin to Awakening and Fates too, due to the marriage system, but hopefully the devs would keep what Three Houses did and have one less, or one more, support in a set if it meant the conversation topic is paced out better, and we don’t get multiple S supports that are basic confessions and the like. The conversations that are in FE4 include some absolute gems, so I have high hopes on how the devs can develop the relationships of the characters that don’t talk at all, but can still end up married!

Now from my wants, to pure speculation! I’ve lost hope for a remake any time soon at this point, but hey, fans gotta dream, right?

I really think FE4/Jugdral is the next remake(s) we are getting if any. I mean… it’s not hard to guess when FEs 4-6 are the only ones left really on the table of highly possible remakes, but hey. My biggest reason for this conclusion: when I held my “which novel translations next?” poll, FE4 commanded over 25% of the votes!! If any of that momentum makes it to the dev’s office, Jugdral would be a no brainer to focus on, right?

I think there’s a slim chance that we’ll get an FE6 localization and update as a downloadable title like FE1 did. I’d much rather prefer FE6 get the FE1 treatment because the FE GBA games are beautiful as is, so I’d rather see them get just some updates. There’s a chance it would be a bit of a tragedy if they got a new coat of paint. The Advance Wars remake is unfortunately a good example.

The good sign from the Advance Wars remake is that an Intelligent Systems remake is getting two games in one! Anyone else think of this as a ray of hope that FE4 and FE5 will be in the same package? Maybe maybe? I see the chance.

I could keep going on, but I think this is a good amount of time and words to put into the subject for one post. If anyone has any further questions on the topic, do send them though!

[pikespendragon67]

Twitter’s speculating the next FE games are Tellius remakes and if that’s the case not only will it be awesome to finally afford to play them but this could also possibly mean Priam shows up in a bonus end

Also here’s my tier list of things that I would like:

Best outcome: Priam gets his own game similar to Awakening or he shows up in Tellius remakes

Also awesome outcome: Jugdral remakes or maybe even Elibe. Potentially Awakening if it has full voice acting this time and Priam shows up earlier in the story

[historyoftheemblem]

Honestly I think the main reason they don't redo the older games is because of what happened with Shadow Dragon. But as I understand it they changed a bunch for that game from the original. Regardless I still love Shadow Dragon. This is just my speculation.

Chances are, it’s in part because the older games they remade were two out of the five of Kaga’s games, and yes, sales were not good. They weren’t enough to raise an already dying franchise, and the Jugdral titles are both too difficult and FE4 is too different (and was originally not even planned to be a Fire Emblem game in the first place, to further emphasize that point). FE2 is also very different, though some of its mechanics were ingrained into the new titles, but the game itself is pretty much forgotten/ignored/less loved in majority by fans. In other words, it’s probably a less safe bet for a remake.

Shadow Dragon was mostly a graphics update compared to New Mystery, which was a full on remake. It was the beginning of My Unit and they added many things not present in FE3.

I’m sure IntSys also prefers to keep Kaga’s games as Kaga’s games, as it’s pretty well known they ended on bad terms (and the 25th anniversary book only mentioned him, the creator of FE, once, from what I’ve been told/seen others mention who owned the book). Likely, they tried using his games to get some money back through remaking his games, but we all know that didn’t work, and they probably don’t want to risk it again.

Personally, I completely disagree heavily (and that’s not even a strong enough word) with any remakes. They’ve be releasing the older titles for Virtual Console which is great, but remakes? I’m personally completely and utterly against them (regarding, at least, Kaga’s remaining non-remade titles).

~Mod Leafy / JD

[markoftheasphodel]

Been thinking about the semi-inevitable FE4 remake, and this question popped up: If that game kept its romance mechanics as free as it originally was, would it still have the FE13 problem of incompatible people still being pairable with each other just because they're a male and female couple? Would you hate the idea of good characters like Patty and Fee settling for idiots like Lester or ciphers like Delmud more or less?

Well, the advantage of a remake is that FE4* has the potential to flesh out the Diarmuids and Lesters as lovingly as the likes of Boey and Forsyth were fleshed out in FE15. Imagine Diarmuid reworked with the raw material already there and the care and attention given to most of the Echoes gang and you have a fine character there. Lester written with the same attention given to Jesse or Python might be a likable character.

If anything, it’s the Gen1 characters who’d potentially suffer from FE13-style supports in which every improbable pairing permitted by FE4 mechanics gets the tired C-B-A-proposal development. Jamke and Tailtiu? Azelle and Ayra? Beowolf and Erinys? Do we need seven different iterations of Arden stumbling into a dream-girl romance? Do we need a full illustration of how Lachesis MIGHT settle for Midir?

Not really, no. Would an FE4* restrict support chains to only the “predestined” couples? Echoes indicated remake support chains might be parsimonious compared with the expansive supports of FE13/14/16, but Echoes followed through on the fixed pairings and relatively sparse endings of the NES era, expanding on them only by degree. FE4 was never set up that way. 

We don’t know and I assume we’re all gonna find out the hard way.

[markoftheasphodel]

Kinda sounds like your preference for Ephraim is because of how much longer you’ve lingered on him combined with how you’ve managed to finagle his gacha quotes into being headcanon-compatible. Or in other words, he’s been grandfathered in as your favorite, alongside Innes and Leaf, thanks to the sheer tonnage of fanfic and speculation you’ve made about him. You think it’s ever gonna be possible for any FE character to unseat them in your headspace, even besides the “cannibalism” elephant?

Ephraim and Innes succeed not just because I’ve been playing with them for a damn decade, but because the information about them is relayed quite decently in a concise, self-encapsulated, non-contradictory way. To take Eph and Innes and then review their handful of A-supports and determine what it says about them as men and as kings is an entirely different process from sifting through all the damn potential pairings for Dimitri and Claude (including, of course, the damned cipher of a female self-insert) and figuring out what the essence of the character is beyond “Dimitri ain’t straight” and “Claude’s a political animal,” both of which were already pretty damn clear in the game and both of which are undermined by several of the endings.

FE has changed the way it does storytelling, whether it’s the use of self-inserts as a device or multiple routes that are fundamentally irreconcilable on a larger scale beyond “we recruited character X, sorry character Y” or the vast slew of Tab A Meets Slot B support chains wherein I’m expected to believe some dude like Virion is equally down with Cherche and Lissa AND Miriel AND Sully AND Nowi just because he’s a dude. FE16 did better but when you take cross-house relationships and such into account (not to mention DLC), you’re dealing with Too Much Stuff for the characters to be as good as they could be. It’s not a coincidence that many characters I favor thus far are actual route-locked characters where this sort of dilution happens less!

I mean, shit, reboot!Python and Lukas and Saber and Genny pole-vaulted over dozens and dozens of legacy characters in my esteem by dint of being well-written, concisely-written characters... and then the DLC that the Deliverance GOT was actually really, really good for their characters. If an entirely new FE were to just fuckin’ restrain itself and deliver on ONE core story with ONE cast of characters, they could absolutely deliver the goods.  

(And FE15 didn’t manage integrating Alm’s arc and Celica’s arc into the single coherent story it was supposed to be as well as an NES game from the 1990s did, go figure!)

Since there’s no indication FE’s writers are interested in doing any such thing when there’s money to be made on multiple routes ‘n’ DLC ‘n’ shit, I just have to hope that whatever Jugdral/GBA/Tellius remakes are in the pipeline are crafted with FE15-level attention. I mean hell, giving the Deliverance treatment to the Selphina Scrub Squad could make them great characters. A remake could make something great out of Lester or Diarmuid or Ulster the way that Tobin and Gray and Mae and Boey all transcended their origins. It’s possible.

Or the remakes could just finally present the core Jugdral cast in one (or two) coherent, fully-realized installments so that collating artbooks and interview scraps and designer notes and the nuances of multiple fan translations is no longer necessary. Heroes already went some way in this regard. Just gotta wait and see, I guess.  

[markoftheasphodel]

Sounds like you want support conversations to be either abandoned like in FE11, or SEVERELY limited to the FE15 quantity, because the quantity of partners that FE13 provides leads to self-contradictory/incomprehensible characters that are either unusable or unfun to write in fic.

I think the GBA era did a pretty good job of parceling out the support conversations in terms of quantity and quality; the mechanics for building them in-game and the caps on what could be achieved per playthrough are shit. FE15 didn’t do quite enough with some characters-- I mention the Rise of the Deliverance DLC favorably because the extra coupla conversations did REMARKABLE things for the Deliverance as characters. But in between some manner of base convos (necessary at this point IMO), 4-7 support chains per character, boss battle dialogue, and the various forms of “reaction” chatter that have become standard since FE got voice acting, and cut scenes... that’s plenty.

Let’s look at Diarmuid for a potential FE4 reboot since he’s got so little to go on in FE4 itself.

Reboot!Diarmiud Support Chains in order of necessity:

#1: Nanna

#2: Oifey, as his mentor and using their original event conversation as a base

#3: Ares, since they’re cousins, liege-and-knight, and riding home together unless Diarmuid inherits some shit.

#4: Lester and/or Ulster, as his Tirnanog bros

#5: Seliph, as his present liege and his Tirnanog bro

#6: Leif, as his potential brother-in-law and as foreshadowing for a Thracia 776 remake.

#7: Finn or Lewyn in the event he’s the kid of either one of them

#8: Lachesis in the inevitable “a bunch of Gen 1 characters survived actually!!!” DLC

#9: Predestined love interests, which he didn’t actually have in FE4 so IDEK

You can stop at 4 core support chains, or five if Diarmuid is chatty with both Lester and Ulster, and round him out pretty nicely as a brother, a student, a future knight, and a friend. You can touch on his aspirations, his fears, the legacy he carries, and what makes him the “charming” prince as opposed to the not-very-charming Lester and Ulster. With the addition of all the other now-standard game chatter as described above, Diarmuid exists in multiple dimensions without needing a single forced heterosexual romantic support chain. And anything else is just gravy, including the option for finally hashing things out with a parental unit.

Then let’s take Hannibal, as the precise kind of character who tends to get shafted on supports because he comes in late and no1curr.

Reboot!Hannibal Support Chains in order of necessity:

#1: Coirpre/Charlot, no arguments

#2: Altena, no arguments

#3: Leif, as both Altena’s brother and Hannibal’s future king, not to mention the tie-in to a key scene in Thracia 776

#4: Wildcard. Could be Seliph, but he’s not really as key to Hannibal’s future as the Leonster kiddos. Could be Lene/Laylea. I’d frankly like him to confront Finn over the whole “Well, you finally invaded my country and deposed my lord, so are you satisfied now?” angle. He could also mentor one of the other kiddos in an unexpected way-- Febail, Patty, Tine, Ced? Someone with a Thracian-peninsula angle might work.

#5: ???

Again, four support chains would be GREAT. An FE15 model would likely get us ONE support chain, which would be a shame. FE16, though, was pretty generous in the platonic mentoring that older characters got to do with younger characters, to the point where you could imagine Hannibal getting several conversations that terminate at the B-level. FE16 did some things very right and the platonic support chains are one of them IMO.

[markoftheasphodel]

FEbruary 2020, Day 19:

As FE acquires a track record of remakes, I’ve worried that the position of Team Leonster wrt to Thracia-- which is specifically, explicitly, “these people are basically trash and we’re going to make the world a better place by invading and conquering them”-- would be softened in a potential Jugdral remake, either in the muddled way that random hard edges of Archanea were softened in FE12 or out of an understanding that Team Leonster just might come off as the Bad Guys to a modern audience.

To a certain extent, Three Houses and FE Heroes have laid that particular concern to rest. Heroes hasn’t soft-pedaled the venom of the hostility between sides (especially wrt Quan and Travant)... while Three Houses has made it abundantly clear that fans will excuse blatant imperialism and conquest as long as everyone involved is sufficiently cute and/or fuckable. 

Team Leonster 202X: We’re imperialist AF but we look good doing it!

[markoftheasphodel]

So I’ve been sick on the couch with a cold or w/e these last two days which means I am back on my bullshit! And my bullshit is FinnLachy! Yaaaay.

So last night I wanted to see “Sharena’s” FEH doodle of older!Lachesis holding Nanna as Leonster burns so I could imagine what Lachy might be in FEH if they didn’t force her to be a loli staffbot. And lo and behold, at the bottom of Nanna’s profile under "Closely Associated” characters, it says of Finn: “He protects and raises Nanna.”

Huhhh. Pretty sure a few weeks ago it straight-up said “He becomes like a father to Nanna,” which was a fairly solid shot into the Good Ship SS FinnLachy... though let’s face it, that the new wording isn’t really “shippy” in the least. So, being me, I tried to check the Internet Archive to see if the previous version of the page had been logged (no), then checked the Japanese version of the site to see what it had to say (ナンナを守り育てる。) and if there were any alternate versions of the Japanese website (also no). Then I went looking for J!fandom FEH fora to see if anyone had anything to say on the subject and apart from one thread petitioning IS to NOT make FinnLachy canon in any FE4 remakes and another complaining that FinnLachy fans were still on their bullshit circa late 2018, I didn’t find anything.

Then I went back to the FEH English site and checked Ishtar’s profile to see if they’d amended the mistranslation calling her Queen of Northern Thracia. They hadn’t. So... it doesn’t look like Nanna’s profile was tweaked as any part of a general clean-up of mistranslations... if that was indeed a mistranslation in the first place.

Curiouser and curiouser....

[markoftheasphodel]

Darn it, wasn’t trolling. I was just trying to think of characters that were relevant but plot-unnecessary. I like Homeros and he’s a good framing device for Unreliable Narrator headcanons by saying FE5 is his dramaticized recounting of the Thracia conflict, but he and Shanam are still kinda plot-irrelevant. Maybe shoulda just gone with Trude instead...

Well, yeah.

You take a cast that includes multiple redundant horse dudes with zero dialogue and a redundant sword dude with zero dialogue and single out the fabulously swishy bard with a hilarious recruitment scene and a good juicy scene with fake!Shannan as someone who’s an obvious candidate for the axe? That’s a WEIRD look.

[markoftheasphodel]

If you wanted to trim FE5’s cast for a remake, who do you think should get the axe FE3-style? Other than easy choices like Dalshin or Homeros.

I... wouldn’t.

[markoftheasphodel]

PT#2 (Golden Deer) FE16 reactions: Part 14 & Final:

DEADLORDS? WE FIGHT DEADLORDS ON THIS ROUTE?

Yeah, so didn’t see a big smackdown with Actual Nemesis and his Actual 10 Elites with their nasty weapons coming. Interesting that Fraldarius rode a pegasus!

(So where did they get the weapon clones? Dark Freikugel, Dark Failnaught, etc? Also “Dark Lance of Ruin” is so much dark overkill.)

Anyway, cool battle what with the swamp and shit even if my main takeaway was “when FE4 finally gets remade the shock of Deadlords is gonna be so muted thanks to FE13 and this...”

I had Hilda take down Goneril for funsies while Claude dealt with Blaiddyd on behalf of Dimitri (RIP), Felix exorcised his own demons by whacking Fraldarius, and Byleth nuked Nemesis to go to the final cutscene with Claude and his magic arrow...

And then Claude fucks off to Almyra! Wow. WOW. He does say the L-word tho...

... but then he comes back at the head of an army. Cool. Nice to know Byleth was facing a rebellion in short order because, yeah.

Um... was it actually confirmed that Rhea died? Did I miss that? Obviously she was in rough shape before the Nemesis battle but I didn’t see anyone mourning her like I’d expect they would but at the same time she didn’t explicitly retire like in Azure Moon. Whut.

Pairings achieved by accident because even with “Close Allies” and selective S-support unlocking I still suck at this:

Ignatz & Flayn. It’s a cute epilogue!

Marianne & Lorenz. Pretty good ending TBH. Lorenz has good ones in general.

Felix & Sylvain. Sucks compared with their Azure Moon ending TBH.

Hilda and Cyril. Ending text better than support thread would indicate but it does say the both grow and mature...

Byleth and Claude because yeah, ultimate power couple.

And... that’s a wrap? As expected, not as visceral as Azure Moon even if we learned a lot more. They’re both very good routes even if for different reasons. Azure Moon is deeply felt but so much was left unresolved and we just are supposed to believe it all worked out, while Verdant Wind answered questions that only lead to more questions and had a general sense of “good job but the work ain’t done”-- in other words, totes appropriate to the personalities of Dimitri and Claude respectively!

I think I need a break before I join the Black Eagles tho. 

[markoftheasphodel]

Home base ideas for FE4 remake:

So the monastery in FE16 provides some real nice fodder for how the unique “home base” castles in every FE4 chapter could be remade.

1) Main chamber, where everyone is standing around. Unique architecture suitable to each region. Sigurd/Seliph can talk to everyone in the army in here.

2) Garden, where a character returning to their home castle can encounter their lover and have unique dialogue. Dialogue would preferably be more specialized than before and perhaps evolve with every chapter.

3) Arena, which basically works like the FE16 tournaments except everyone cycles thru them once a chapter instead of select handpicked units.

4) Fortune-teller shop where Old Hubba is doin’ his thing.

5) Blacksmith because weapon repair is awesome

6) Different vendors for the weapons/rings/stat boosters (if they’re included)

7) Chapel where promotions can take place. Oifey or Lewyn is hanging out here to guard it. If you do a Valkyrie Staff resurrection that’d also take place here.

8) Tea party room and garden if possible. Given FE15 added consumables, Jugdral remakes might also. If they added cooking, we already know Patty would be ALL OVER that.

Castles you liberate/conquer would have this on a smaller scale-- no promotion chapel, no garden for lovers, etc.

[markoftheasphodel]

Thoughts on an FE4 Remake in light of Three Houses (pre-timeskip)

I like battalions and that would be a fun way to illustrate the stated creator intent that the FE4 peeps each represent a larger host (except the Leonster Trio in the Prologue because Quan said so, wth). Imagine Erinys commanding her pegasus knights, Beowolf leading a faction of mercenaries from Voltz’s group, Tine bringing her mage warriors into Seliph’s fold, etc.

I love the adjutant system and it would offer a neato way to custom-raise Oifey and maybe Shanan pre-timeskip.

I would be totes OK with tea parties being implemented in FE4.

The weapon-repair system in FE16 is basically Jugdral’s repair shop with a communal pot of gold and a forge option. The tournament system is similar to Jugdral’s arena in that it’s a set number of matches and it’s OK if you lose ‘cause you just get a lower reward instead of dying.

Basically the more I play of this the more I’m saying “GIVE ME THAT FE4 REMAKE NOW.”