So if you made it to the end of Engage without skipping the story, you know that it ended with the big bad going through a long lore dump where he reveals his goal is to travel to other worlds to find his lost friend who he calls the Emblem of Foundations. This isn’t strange on its own because Engage has a habit of having characters lore dump shortly before or during their deaths. But Sombron’s story about the Emblem of Foundations left me with a nagging question: Was IS alluding to series creator, Shouzou Kaga?
Kaga is generally credited as the main creative force behind the first five Fire Emblem games, but he left IS because he thought the Playstation was a better fit for the next project he had in mind. And seeing as Engage was designed as a celebration of the series for the 30th Anniversary, I found it odd that it ended with a character bemoaning the departure of a character with the title, Foundations. I’m well aware that I may be reading something into the scene that wasn’t intended.
It’s possible the Emblem of Foundations could be expanded on in the upcoming DLC story. It could refer to an important entity in the series, like Naga, or it could be that IS didn’t have an identity in mind for the Emblem of Foundations and was just writing a generic “sad” backstory. However, during Sombron’s lore dump, my mind went immediately to “Is IS talking about Kaga?” I haven’t seen this brought up by anyone else discussing Engage’s story, so I wanted to put this out there and see if anyone was thinking the same thing or if I’m just making wild assumptions.
There are a few points that I think indicate who the Emblem is:
When Sombron is saying he can finally see the Emblem again in his dying moments, he’s looking at Alear and Veyle.
The incantation is Burn us, Emblem of Foundations. Burn as in flame, as in Fire Emblem.
Marth makes a specific point of saying that it’d be quite possible to run into the original person the Emblem is based on, but they would be a separate entity from the Emblem.
On a meta level, I find it very unlikely that the Emblem would be a character from a previous game, even a character with larger importance like Naga.
Basically, I think the Emblem of Foundations is an Alear from another world. The DLC seems to be about a parallel world to Elyos (what with that hooded figure with Fogado’s skintone and his necklace in the trailer), so I think it coming up in the DLC is fairly plausible.
I told myself I wouldn’t join in many Engage story discussions because I can not stand when people immediately dismiss stories in discussions but I do think that this theory holds some water.
Along with what you said the Emblem of Foundations is said to be isolated and aloof, much like Kaga after he left the series.
Along with that you could see Alear and the parallel to sombron. Alear is the thirteenth emblem, the same number as the Fire Emblem series’ entry that revitalized the series and seen as its new beginning, Awakening. The zero emblem could conversely represent the beginning or the past of the series since the thirteenth emblem represents the future of the series.
If zero emblem is to represent something or someone then yeah, I would believe that it represents Kaga and his impact on the series.
This also means that the ending of this game is essentially telling the community to stop seeking the past and wanting for a return and instead look to the future and be hopeful for all the new things it will have to offer which I think is a wonderful message.
Not really.
The entire conflict of the story centers around the villains and heroes both seeking the past to achieve their goals and by the end of the story the emblems leave and are laid to rest, leaving their final gift to Elyos, the thirteenth emblem as the future. The game calls back to the past as the entire center of the conflict and has the villain’s entire goal to be rejoined with the zero emblem and by the end the game lays that past to rest and leaves the future open.
Cringegage did classic characters dirty, using them as literal tools for Mary Sue/Gary Stu Alear, constantly bootlicking them, then having them make the already a god Alear into the loving “Fire Emblem” and all kill themselves at the end to save a world no one gives a poo poo about due to the lovely characters and worldbuilding. Cringegage is far, far worse than the Star Wars sequels. If the emblem of foundations really is Kaga, what a way to gently caress over fans of the classics.
You see this would be the case if any of this were true.
The Emblems each have their own paralogue with the avatar with each of them having a sparring match with Alear in order for them to grow and improve. They’re not going “Alear you’re super based and awesome” they’re serving as mentors to Alear in order for them to grow as a person, and we can see all of that pay off when Alear has to face corrupted Lumera. Chapter 2 Alear would have stayed with Lumera and tried to keep her around, the current Alear instead chose to fight and lay her soul to rest even with his fear of the corrupted and knowing that Lumera wasn’t even his real mother.
They’re not the real characters, they’re spirits representing them. Idk how you missed that since it’s literally told to the player at both the beginning and end of the story but whatever, the Emblems disappearing at the end for the world of Elyos and Alear, the thirteenth emblem, the foundation for the future is essentially the past building the groundwork for the future and being laid to rest when it is their time to go. The ghostly apparitions of the past games do not hang over the head of the future but instead pave the way for it.
ikr the worldbuilding and characters are so fun, so much better than some of the older games, glad we could agree on something!
