Nintendo published a new interview with a number of Fire Emblem Engage developers which explains why the game won't feature marriages and how the veterans at Intelligent Systems went about replacing this series staple in the upcoming game. The in-depth look at the development process of the company's latest strategy RPG arrived just as Nintendo lifted the Fire Emblem Engage review embargo.
The marriage and child mechanics were some of the most popular secondary features of Fire Emblem Awakening and Fire Emblem Fates, Intelligent Systems' tactical RPG duo for the 3DS. While Three Houses offered a plethora of romance options, the first Fire Emblem game for the Switch still chose not to replicate this functionality. Some players were consequently hoping that the marriage mechanics will make a return in Fire Emblem Engage, not least because its very name was possibly implying as much.
Though it turns out that won't be the case, the developers at Intelligent Systems believe they managed to capture the essence of the marriage and child mechanics with the new Fire Emblem Engage Emblems system. The game's director, Kenta Nakanishi, explained that this feature wasn't just influenced by character marriages from Fates and Awakening, but that it also drew inspiration from the love system of the 1996 classic Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War.
All three of those games allowed players to build rapports between various unit pairs in order to have them get married, consequently recruiting their children in the later stages of each campaign. The new Emblems system is an attempt to emulate the rewards of those classical marriage mechanics while minimizing their time investment prerequisites, Nakanishi said.
Instead of spending dozens of hours grinding support levels between specific units just to see their (possibly unimpressive) offspring, Fire Emblem Engage allows players to equip their heroes with Emblem Rings, helping them inherit new attacks, abilities, and even weapons from other characters. What's arguably even more important is that this titular action of "merging" or "engaging" with Emblem Rings is available from early on in the campaign. This allows players to experiment with a wide variety of unit pairings in a more casual manner without sacrificing any depth when it comes to the actual inheritance mechanics, according to Nakanishi.
The Emblems mechanic isn't the only way in which Intelligent Systems streamlined its latest strategy RPG, as Fire Emblem Engage is also removing weapon durability from the series' staple gameplay loop. The social aspect of Three Houses is also taking a backseat in favor of a more straightforward approach to 3D exploration which places a bigger focus on looting and battle preparation.
Fire Emblem Engage is schedule to hit Nintendo Switch on January 20, 2023.
Source: Nintendo