DISCLAIMER
All of this, as indicated in the thread’s category, are concepts, and due to kinda being unable to separate the concept tag from the project tag, this is somewhat the only category I’ve seemingly been able to adjust this in.
TL;DR: This is not a project, merely a concept. If this is better moved to a different category, do say.
Hello there, this is Lesk, your bland nitpicker of the day, who’s here with possibly the worst crossover/idea/concept ever.
Fire Emblem x Nobunaga’s Ambition.
For the ones who don't know what Nobunaga's Ambition is
Although the most closer perception of it on this concept (due to games played) would be something nearing Pokemon Conquest (for if that name rings a bell), Nobunaga’s Ambition is a turn-based grand strategy role-playing simulation game.
Grand Strategy as in your control is not just an army of Fire Emblemers with your mandatory blue hair cuck, but with having to shoulder an entire country, and, depending on how complicated do you wanna go, relationships with others, army building, resources, etc.
Now, the general thing would be thinking about possible “plots” (possibly all bad) and possible mechanics to make it feel like an actual “crossover” of sorts and not just be Fire Emblem ported to Nobunaga or viceversa.
Concept 1 - Emblem's Ambition
This would be the “simplest” of them, though at the same time, the lamest of them.
The continents of Archanea, Elibe, Fodlán, Judgral and Zenith have been split apart and rearranged together, and, within the confusion, chaos reigned. It is now your duty to fend off known attackers from other games.
So, yeah. Remember how I said that I didn’t want Fire Emblem ported to Nobunaga?
While it is still an option, and it could be managed towards early-game conquest+management, it could later be redirected towards finding the source of the whole continent mishap.
Although starring as one of the main lords would be a good option, it also could technically mean that one would have to prepare for dialogue options and making every choice somewhat easily available early game (not get nuked turn 1), to what I consider that simply making an avatar mc (we hate those) could probably be the best choice.
Concept 2 - An entirely unique story
Maybe it can just be a new game from the ground up, no references from other games, no mentions of other kingdoms, just a raw tale of people uniting a country through war, diplomacy, intrigue and others.
This could technically hand-wave some issues that other options could have, as in you necessarily wouldn’t need to enforce full-on recruitment rights for everyone, but could create other issues, besides having to carefully make every characther and every nation from the ground up - making it an excessively ambitious project.
Here, it could fall between an avatar mc or a normal mc, though it’d still be safer to be kept as a Tactician.than a playable, and since it would be an “original” story, there would be no need to stretch it further from a whole uniting the continent game.
Concept 3 - Nobunaga's Emblem
Just as said before on Concept 1 that having just a port in would be lame, we’d be having kind of the opposite kind now: Porting the plot and concept of Nobunaga’s Ambition, and just slapping some Fire Emblem mechanics over it and call it a day.
While technically, it would be a somewhat boring choice, it’s also one that feels that would turn out to be more faithful to the original, where the focus is placed more on making the game work as the original, except on the GBA under the Fire Emblem engine, adding mechanics as the leveling up, inventory and others, foregoing Supports completely.
Overall, though, I’m not extremely keen on this option, despite technically being one that could be managed the “easiest” (all extremely complicated anyways).
Concept 4 - Nobunaga's Universe
I wonder if there’s any way to make a concept that could invoke hell on earth.
Now, what if, and emphasis on that if, this was a community project? (we hate those)
A full-on conquest game where all the enemy countries and possible recruitables come from various fan projects completed or left to vanish by years past?
A project that would surely get cancelled over which lord has the biggest growth on the most relevant stat as people would be unable to agree with each other seems like the go-to idea.
Fruitless banter aside, this concept’s story would somewhat be similar to Concept 2’s plot, whereas everyone has been stuck together (with glue) to an unknown place, and putting differences aside (or not), each game fights now for supremacy within the newly formed continent of this game.
Hell on earth, I tell you.
On possible mechanics
For Fire Emblem mechanics that could be added up into this, most choices feel like tricky things.
Support, Fatigue System and Weaponry all make sense, but Permadeath makes it iffy.
Considering this would be a strategy game where the win conditions and loss conditions are not tied to the success of one single battle, making characthers perma-die could negatively affect the game, as if its bound to “main characther dies, game over”, it doesn’t really make much sense on the larger scheme of things.
And without mc game over, it can feel like every other unit trained can be quickly rendered wasted time on a loss over a mc that technically doesn’t die.
Yet, without death, there’d somewhat be a slight lack of taking one of Fire Emblem’s core mechanics (that is ignored nowadays thanks to Casual Mode, savestatting, and other things o’ life), which is the permadeath mechanic.
Of course, while this could technically be completely avoided by just having a Tactician MC (no more battle for them) and have it just be sending known units to the battle against other units.
Now, recruitment. Up to what extent should units be recruitable? Should everyone just go by the laws of “You conquered my kingdom so now I’ll swear my allegiance to you”? Should people be recruitable under specific conditions? Should there be just some units that can be recruited at all, limiting the fact that its aim is for it to be a “Everyone is Here!” kind of game? Have been trying to ponder it and I don’t seem to come with a satisfactory answer.
And then, we have Nobunaga mechanics coming in. How much strategy and resource management should be inside the game? Should there be any kind of diplomacy? How should the other countries act? Should there be “technological developement”?
Should there be any kind of “overseer” whose favor could be used against or for someone, just as a “court” existed on the originals? Should sabotaging, intrigue and such be a thing?
Maps also are a thought on this, as technically the difference on realms might shake things up a bit - and while having familiar maps come back in would be something, the size of them would be heavily affected by the context, (skirmishes, attack on towns, sieges, full-out war, etc.).
There should also be the concept of “time” within the game. Should there be some sort of record keeping as the turns pass by?
At some points, there isn’t really much of a concise idea of how to handle it without it feeling it weird or strange.
And for now, that would probably all this trainwreck of a concept thought out here thus far (I might hate myself).
Extra Question for totally not a different bad concept
Inside the concept of the free-roam inside chapter maps, could there be any way to make it so random encounters could happen within them? (Zooming into a larger map, as if it were one of those RPGs per turns that swarmed you with grindable encounters)
