Didn’t remember that. Still kind of shows how bad of a decision to alter a core mechanic that had existed for three games prior was. Since it got changed back in the very next game and every game since.
Honestly, and i say this knowing exactly where I’m saying it at, they’d most likely overhaul several aspects of fe4 simply because many of the concepts in it don’t work when compared to modern FE.
A few examples are.
Rescue hasn’t been a thing since Tellius.
Individual unit gold counts only existed here.
Trading that required said gold only existed here.
Maps so large that foot units are considered bad solely because they aren’t mounted OR didn’t have pursuit was here.
I’m sure there are other mechanics that really bog down the experience comparatively to more recent titles, but as much as some of us want them to leave the game largely untouched, the most likely scenario would be a drastic mechanical overhaul to make it more casual friendly and less overwhelming with resource and income management.
I assume you mean its magic costing health, since every other mechanic in gaiden has been used, or tweaked for use, in another game.
For just a few off the top examples.
3rd tier classes was used in Radiant Dawn.
No weapon Triangle was used in 3 Houses.
Rings granting various effect was reused in Genealogy.
Even Echo’s unique concept of weapon arts got reused in immediately in 3 Houses.
Yet some of the most unique mechanics of Genealogy didn’t get re-used because they either drastically slowed down gameplay or made going into the game blind an absolute nightmare.
Though being able to actually deploy every character would be nice some other FE games due to some of the enemy bloated maps they like to throw at you.
Still
Echoes has some nerfs, buffs and other small additions here and there such as forging, supports and Faye as the new villager. But mechanically, it is almost identical to Gaiden.
Shadow Dragon on the other hand is very different to FE1.
It has Weapon Triangle, Standard Weapon Ranks, Marth doesn’t have an-auto taunt on every enemy in this range, Magic-Avoid is no longer determined by luck, Tomes in FE1 have a base damage and there is no way to get more magic damage, Falchion is less broken than in FE1, the price and frequency in which you can buy silver and killer weapons is a lot more spread out, etc.
Along with many other quality of life improvements.
But nonetheless,
Shadow Dragon and FE1 are just mechanically very different games.
While Echoes feels like a more modernized version of Gaiden.
This is what is called “a distinction without a difference.”
They’re both modernized versions of the source materials that actually stay faithful to the core gameplay of the series which is the map design and unit composition is generally similar. Even with Echoes doing a major overhaul to the script and packaging, with a few additions, the story progression is pretty much the same.
So that’s what I’ve come to expect from IS remakes. Modernizing mechanics but not really straying too far from the source material. Echoes added an entire Weapon Arts system. The changes were not quite as trivial as you make them out to be.
But the fact that Echoes stayed so close to the original game’s maps was actually a pretty big disappointment to me, considering how bad they were. Shadow Dragon also does this, it just had more complex maps to begin with due to the lack of the free roam mechanic or map recycling.
Which is kind of where genealogy has one of its biggest flaws, the bloated maps.
Now a multi castle siege map like egghead brought up in a recent video is actually a very good map to base how a large map can have a thematic impact on gameplay and yet also exacerbates the very problem of those large maps.
From the perspective of a blind playthrough, how do you deal with 3 castles simultaneously under siege if you actually took the turns to gather your entire army for the final push leaving the first two castles completely undefended.
one idea i have is splitting that particular chapter into two squad based chapters that break after the second castle gets taken. One squad guards the first two castles in reserve untill the wyverns actually get deployed and the other squad finishes the charge.
It allows for a few more units to get some training and enables more aggressive player movements with the primary squad.
How would some of you like to see them break up the more…lengthy chapters?
I would definitely like to see more of the cast involved in the main story. Each generation has a pretty small cast, so I don’t think it would be too difficult to write more of them into the story. It could help to fill in some oddities about what the supporting characters do, like why does Raquesis stay with Sigurd’s army after Uprising in Augustria instead of returning to Eldigan’s side. Does she (and perhaps Eldigan) think it’s safest for her to stay with Sigurd or does she just hate/distrust Chagall too much to put herself in a position where she might have to follow his orders? It would be nice for that sort of thing to be touched on.
Honestly, I’m not sure Nintendo of America would want to deal with the press of gaming journalists seeing a plot point where a woman is brainwashed and essentially given to a man for the sake of him having relations with her, and without that, the story becomes something else entirely. I know that there are more regions than just America, but ever since Awakening’s success, Nintendo has treated Fire Emblem more like a flagship IP than a series developed for the Japanese audience with a possibility of localization. Whether Deirdre loved Arvis and to what extent is left vague in game, and really, any way that it might be written is pretty unsavory because of the circumstances around whatever sort of relationship they had. So I find it unlikely that an FE4 remake would ever happen (maybe a reimagining but not a retelling of the same story), but I could definitely be wrong.
Edit: I didn’t mention gameplay, so I’ll so that I’d like to see most of the green unit wars condensed into a cutscene. Waiting for all of the Sillesian Pegasus Knights to be defeated before progressing can be a little tedious. Though I think that something like the Yied Massacre is more effective from a storytelling perspective happening slowly during gameplay while the player is helpless to do anything about it.
