Today, February 22nd, we're
celebrating a special day: the Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn's 10th
anniversary (from its original release in Japan), and I thought it
would be a interesting idea talk about this game; how is this game,
its legacy and other influences in the Fire Emblem Series (for good
or bad reasons), etc.
The Story
Let's begin with what happened before
the release; Radiant Dawn is (as we know) the tenth entry of the main
series, developed since May 2005, (the same year it were announced the
“Nintendo Revolution” and the development of Super Smash Bros
Brawl) this game begin its developed soon after the Path of
Radiance release, sequel for their previous release; they wanted to
take advantage of the Revolution's release, this made Radiant Dawn
the first attempt to release a Fire Emblem game in the Earliest Days
of a console lifetime.
Radiant Dawn got its official
announcement the next year during the Pre-E3 Nintendo Conference (May
9th, 2006), the Revolution had already changed its
codename to the official “Wii” some days ago; Radiant Dawn was
briefly showed that day, with most of the content in the teaser being
the first two CG cut scenes; a extremely weak presentation if you ask
me; but it doesn't surprise me, Fire Emblem don't have anything those
days to try to give it a proper presentation; the game was then
showed again in some Japanese events and Videogame-dedicated
magazines before the eventual release.
When the game was finally released,
even with good scores from Famitsu, it got .. underwhelming results,
it got 160k sales, only a small improve compared with the PoR's
Sales. (Radiant Dawn has the “honor” to be the Fire Emblem Game
with the forth weakest first-week sales and the third lowest total
sales in Japan), personally I find the fault in the extremely weak
advertising (including a weak presentation, boring ads and be
overshadowed for other games).
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| Only Path of Radiance and TMS #FE have overall worse sales in Japan. |
As some interesting fun facts about the
game pre-release and release; the game confirmed the presence of two
main groups and details about the first two parts, with the only
element from other Parts confirmed being “The Crossing” fragment
of the Part 3 that appears in the intro; the game completely lacked
any kind of representation for Ike, something that in the hindsight I
find hilarious, specially when you see how the plot is handle after
his appearance.
The advertising before the western
release (during November 11st, 2007) in the other hand,
was a lot more Ike-centric, even if this was still small and weak;
probably the changes in the focus was with the intention to show
perfectly this game is a sequel, thing that I'm not completely sure
if was or wasn't a good idea.
The Story wasn't that much better in
America (and specially in Europe) sales-wise, with a weak
performance, only getting roughly 300k~ in the West.
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| Without a doubt, Ike has a interesting story in the franchise |
Before we pass to the next part, there
is something important to point that happened during 2005 related
with the Radiant Dawn: It's unknown how it affected the game's
development, but during a moment after July 7h (when the roster was
“essencially” done), Masahiro Sakurai was in the search of a
“burly swordsman” and a “new Fire Emblem Character” for the
already mentioned Super Smash Bros Brawl; apparently a suggestion
from one of the member from the Fire Emblem's Staff ended mixing both
ideas in the form of Ike, eventually his suggestion become a reality,
as one of the members of Brawl's Starter Roster, officially revealed
in August 1st, 2007. Ike is probably the luckiest example of a Fire
Emblem character in Smash Bros, we was essentially selected to fit a
criteria and gimmick instead of his character of what he would
represent from Fire Emblem... and this decision changed his life
forever even if didn't affected Radiant Dawn's development (something
I'm going to explain later)
What happened next
After the last two games flopping; as a
intent to test the waters and know what direction would the franchise
go in future, Intelligent System decided (a little after Radiant
Dawn's development was complete) to create a special project that
would make the franchise less niche, the known details about the game
suggest that this game had more RPG elements than the usual Fire
Emblem Game; but this idea had a problem; the project was unable to
find a proper objective and focus in its development; and as we know,
it was cancelled.
It's unknown if there were other
reasons to cancel this game, I ask myself this because just a bit
after this game was cancelled, Fire Emblem enter in a Era where not
only abandoned completely the Home Console Market, the franchise
tried to milk the Marth's Popularity a lot, remaking his two games
(Fire Emblem Dark Dragon and Fire Emblem Mystery of Emblem, the last
one, the Fire Emblem's best seller) and making him a key aspect of
Fire Emblem Awakening merchandise in the form of “Masked Marth”
(aka Completely-no-Lucina), one of the most heavily advertised
characters in the game (and actually lived his.. I mean, her hype,
but that is topic for another day.)
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| Sometimes I think the Lucina's existence is a product of Smash. |
Why I mention Marth's Popularity right
now? Because this character has a very special reason to be popular:
Smash Bros., even if Anna is officially the Fire Emblem's Mascot, for
most of the people, Marth it's considered as such; and he wasn't the
only character benefited for the Smash Bros presence... that is
right, Ike, even if he was incorporated in the Smash Bros for
COMPLETELY arbitrary reasons, he was able to gain tons of love, and
even some times been considered the most beloved lord in the
franchise; the Ike's love would have existed before, during the
post-PoR days, but the Smash Bros establish him as a Fire Emblem
Icon; in the Ike's case, Awakening decided to dedicate him a “cameo”
with a character based in his design and personality; Paris/Priam,
and, according with him, the Ike's descendant, apparently connecting
his world somehow with the Akanea/Judgrall/Valentia Universe; also,
while not as evident as Priam, Chrom looks in my eyes designed as
mix between Marth and Ike, and it's extremely likely this isn't a
coincidence.
Ike and the release of Fire Emblem
Awakening, awakened (hehe) the interest for these games again, but it
was already too late, the games are in most of the places sold out,
and their prices increased... a lot, I remember how I found a Radiant
Dawn copy in 50 Dollars during 2008, and now is practically impossible
to find it cheaper than 90 dollars... How the times change eh?
The future
The recent success of Fire Emblem and
Ike becoming even bigger and bigger as a Fire Emblem Icon, makes me
wonder... What would happen if IS decided to release again Path of
Radiance and/or Radiant Dawn? What would they change? The game's
design was already to focused on benefit Ike when we didn't know if
his confirmation in Smash Bros affected or not the development...
but now, the Ike bias is complete real, and would have actual known
consequences.
I mean, it would sounds weird nowadays
because Ike is established as the main icon of both Fire Emblem
Tellius Games; but he went so far in expense of complete destroy the
possibilities of the original main character from Radiant Dawn, that
isn't other that the maiden we have dedicated this small blog:
Micaiah, to get her proper exposure in the story and complete
successfully her character arc, a phenomenon it hadn't happened
before; a game with a different lord but with the plot complete in
the side of the older one unless is completely necessary.
I would now been a little bit pessimist
right now, specially for a great day like this, but I'm some times
afraid and what would happen if my fears are correct and the remakes
of the Tellius became even bigger Ike's fests? Isn't unjust for the
new characters that tried to gain a place in the fanbase, only to be
completely defeat for Ike and his elite?
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| The structure of the game's story gave it a unique feeling compared with other FEs ... but at what cost? |
Sometimes I think about what would had
happened if IS decided to give completely the protagonism to Micaiah
like they did with other games where the main character was changed
and the story's focus (being the most similar case Thracia 776)...
What would happen if we would have the opportunity to control most of
the game the new lord? A story more focused in the Micaiah's side of
the story, with more room to development and such... This kind of
story doesn't need to invalidate Ike, but his presence and
personality fit more for a legendary hero than a main character (some
kind of Late-Game Character); he has already been developed and ended
his character arc. He should already give an opportunity to another
character to shine".
That is of course my opinion, but I
invite you to think about it and then post your own thoughts.
_______________
And that's it, it has been ten years of
really interesting stuff, some good things happened, some bad things
happened; I would have liked to see some changes in the aspects of
these stories, but I'm glad I was able to share some of my thoughts
and knowledge of the topic; and I hope that your enjoy this day as
much as I.
Happy Anniversary everyone!!
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| We're still waiting for Micaiah in FEH. |
- Troykv (The Dawn's Historian and Micaiah4Smash Main Admin)
