So Fire Emblem Shadows is still a game that's getting updated, and while I may make one big post about its story one day I can't deny the recently announced Book 3 caught my attention with its premise. For those not aware, Shadows jumps around quite a bit with its POV and setting and for our setting now... Well, I'll just let the official advertisements for it speak for itself.
🎥Book 3 Story Release Announcement📖 Book 3, The Axe's Heir, debuts soon! ✨ Get a peek at what awaits in the new story. Progress through th
So that's the premise. This Book will be set inside an military academy in a nation with 12 royal families that houses a massive labyrinth and is teaching its students to defend itself from monsters inside the labyrinth which also houses secrets and powerful items like a legendary axe.
That... Is such a great idea for an FE game I cannot believe its only gonna be in one Book in a spin-off mobile game! Like holy hell, there is like just so much that can be done with this premise. Like firstly, I love the school and the labyrinth being connected because it allows us to have a stationary backdrop for our game, but also allows us to do our RPG mechanics and quests.
Also with the premise of many powerful families in ONE nation means that there's so much potential to flesh just this area of the world. Its and incredible use of having a smaller scope to better define a setting. And the fact that apparently the current rulers are not the "Rightful" rulers means there's so much tension that can be drawn out of this. Was there a conspiracy between a set of families? Which of the twelve was removed and what did that mean for that family? Is there a potential schism between the families? There is so much you can do. Especially if you have a place like-oh I don't know-A school! Where the descendants and heirs of those families congregate? Dramatic tension in a bottle.
Plus, instead of having a war between forces, the mysteries of the labyrinth can be the throughline that connects so many plots or villains or motivations.
Now I know what you're think, "Didn't Three Houses do this though?" I'm gonna level with you, whether you love or hate Three Houses there is no denying that the premise of a Fire Emblem set in a school has potential for many stories, not just the one that FE3H wanted to tell.
When 3H was first being hyped up, many of us didn't know about the timeskip war. All we knew was there was an officer's academy in between three nations, that there were things called "Crests", there was robots, and there was these three really evil looking pale people in dark robes who were probably the villains. That was all. And a lot of people were honestly hyped for this Hogwarts/Yugioh GX style premise. Not every FE had to be a continent spanning war, and it looked like scaling back after the gargantuan size of Fates and its three games, was something people were excited for.
Now they did end up getting even more hype when the first "Kill every last one of them!" trailer dropped and we saw everyone was getting a timeskip: so, we were even more hyped. But with the benefit of hindsight of almost seven years-there are things I still wish we got out of the school premise of 3H. I've been critical before of how you're locked to the school so any of the maps you visit outside of it feel super easy to get to and not much of a sense of regular progress, I think the academy as an academy stopping its primary function half way through a playthrough is a waste of the setting, there's a big emphasis on all the dungeons and crypts of the academy, but only like one map takes advantage of it unless you want to pay DLC that reveals a whole underground community. However, the story that Three Houses wanted to tell at the end of the day was its own. And I don't think it existing should forever cut off the opportunities that InSys could have to tell stories with the academy setting and all the good things the it could be done with it that Three Houses proved was possible like going to class or supports being how we found out a character's backstory and connections inside their class.
I'm not going to lie to you, I get a bit excited at all the doors an FE like this could open. Maybe the maps inside the labyrinth could have like different seasons or phenomena to sell how strange and unknown going deeper into it is? Maybe the monsters become more distorted and stronger as well? Maybe the students to meet could be interested in researching the labyrinth or have different interest in regard to exploration? Maybe once you find this magic axe it begins a gold rush of students also wanting a powerful artifact?
And then my excitement starts to wax and wane when I remember... This is not a traditional Fire Emblem game. This is one book inside the less popular mobile game spin off of Fire Emblem that plays like an Among Us style auto battler while there a big traditional FE game release happening this year.
Like many things in Fire Emblem Shadows, I like the ideas, I like the looks of the characters and world, and I like the premises they are coming up with. But oh, how I wish they were just an actual Fire Emblem game and not... whatever this spin off is. With Fire Emblem Heroes started it always felt like the plot was light and was just an excuse for your star FE character collectithon, that's it. But Fire Emblem Shadows has weirdly kept me invested in the story, even with how bizarre everything is being executed. It makes me want to see what this would be like as an FE even more or hell, maybe a brand new Nintendo IP entirely.
It's a shame that InSys has a tendency to walk back or change things unique to games when they start a new game. Dungeons in FE Echoes? Gone. Pair ups after Fates? Gone. Country sized maps of Jugdral? Gone.
I don't need some FE to be a perfect amalgamation of every single concept FE has ever come up with. Some of these ideas only work because of the creative intentions of the story that the writers want to tell. But the fact that it becomes rarer for them to revisit premises after an entry bothers me so much. I'd hate to never have another Officer's Academy again in FE or if it ever does come back have it be eternally tied to Fodlan. And I'd hate for all the effort that the Shadows team are pouring into their storytelling to be dismissed and never attempted outside this divisive spin off. But unfortunately where we are now, it seems like that's the way its gonna be for the foreseeable future.
I really hope something good does come out of Fe Shadows. A console version not stuck to a service be nice or maybe to just let the fandom adopt and preserve these characters and stories before they become lost media like Priam and the spot pass. Because again the idea is just so-Wait a minute.
School built on top of a labyrinth, different factions at play and in competition with each other, mysteries regarding the labyrinth are the drive force for the plot... Is this just Wistoria: Wand and Sword?
Holy crap, I want an FE version of Wistoria Wand and Sword. Make it happen Nintendo!