Japan gets another GBA Fire Emblem game

[OB1]

Link

And we still get nothing of course, thanks to people like NA working at Nintendo.

Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken on GBA
Following our story early this past week that Nintendo is working on a new Fire Emblem game for the GameCube with Game Boy Advance connectivity in mind, we've got official confirmation today that the company will be releasing Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken (The Sword of Fire) in Japan on April 25th for 4,800 yen. The Fire Emblem series originated on the Famicom (Family Computer, Japan's equivalent of the NES) over 15 years ago, and has inspired such beloved series as Shining Force, Langrisser, and Ogre Battle. As our previous report stated, no game has ever made it to North America; hopefully, that will all change soon. Enjoy the first screens of the game below, thanks to john tv. We'll have more soon.

Posted by Soul4ger on 2.1.2003

Click to see picture.

[Great Rumbler]

Maybe these two [GC and GBA games] games will be the first to make it out over here, maybe NoA has just been waiting for the right oppurtunity, or maybe NoA is run by insane monkeys that will never bring out any Fire Emblem games ever...

[Dark Jaguar]

Here's what I think of NOA at this point...

Executive A: Should we bring over Fire Emblem in light of Advance War's success?

Executive B (Frankenstein's Monster): Fire BAD!

[A Black Falcon]

Nintendo desperately needs to learn that instinctive reactions against change is bad and chances are actually a good thing to take... why can't those idiots figure that out?

[Nintendarse]

Of course, I'm not making decisions that mean dollars in the millions range, but going simply on history, I'd say that releasing Fire Emblem in North America has a favorable risk-reward model. I mean, if we're simply going by traditional views of culture, Pokemon wouldn't work in the United States. That decision would have cost Nintendo billions in revenue. But someone had faith that a quality product with the right word of mouth (Advance Wars, GTA:VC comes to mind) can sell anywhere. Something tells me that America is ready for a product like Fire Emblem. Sure, it's not like Advance Wars (going solely by what N_A says), but we know some key things:

1-the graphical style does not repel North American gamers
2-War themes do not repel North American gamers
3-RPGs (Golden Sun-1 million sold in NA) do not repel North American gamers
4-Japanese complex card-type games do not repel North American gamers (dare I say "Yugioh")

These are the roots of a probable success. Of course, no success is guarenteed. Most of the weight falls on the formation of word of mouth and Nintendo's encouragement of that underground force.

[Dark Jaguar]

I actually got caught up in collecting Yu-Gi-Oh cards. Ah meinlevin...

Anyway, again N_A, this isn't a matter of a guarenteed hit here, so much as at least putting effort in one Fire Emblem game. It may fail, but don't you think they should take the risk when they can afford it? I think it is indeed stupid to take risks all the time especially really massive ones that could fail the company, but this is hardly that. Pokémon was a risk, but they didn't bank the company on it. It would have just been a game that didn't sell that well and that would be it, they would still have plenty of other stuff to keep them going. Fire Emblem could sell horribly, but the potential losses aren't so great that it outweighs the potential gains here.

I'd also like to hear your opinion on Nintendo's online stance.

[OB1]

Right. It's at least worth a shot.

There is no excuse for not releasing Magical Vacation though.

[Great Rumbler]

Originally posted by OB1
There is no excuse for not releasing Magical Vacation though.

None what-so-ever.

[OB1]

Nintendo really sucks sometimes.

[A Black Falcon]

Definitely. Stupid stubborn adherence to tradition...

[Dark Jaguar]

This isn't even about tradition (which I actually like to be adhered to in some cases, like TC's cow tradition, which shall NEVER be killed, ever). I don't see how not releasing one specific game series constitutes an actual "tradition" here, unless it's the tradition Nintendo had of not releasing all their quirky games here. FE isn't even half as quirky or off-beat as Animal Crossing, and look at how amazingly popular that game is, despite it's graphics. A sequal built with GCN in mind, and with online support, and MAYBE even some real engine to actually "read" the letters you write to NPCs, would be UNSTOPPABLE, like some sort of black hole made entirely from dark matter pushed forward by dark energy from some distant source.

[N_A]

Nintendo doesn't have the momentum to afford hits and misses. If they want to survive well to catch Sony and Microsoft when they fuck up, they need to make all hits, and worry about consolidating what they have for now before experimenting with games that will be about as popular as Romance of the 3 Kingdoms, Ogre Battle, etc. here in the US - even if they are wildly popular in Japan. When you're selling war themed games in the US, you're hitting up on a market of gamers who don't play video games - in fact look down on video gamers as half wit button mashers, to card gamers as idiots obsessed with laminated cardboard, and to D+D RPGers as totals freaks... they're called table top wargamers. Instead of playing video game war, they play simulated war with miniatures on a table terrain, kind of like military brass does.

Online gaming is a gauranteed hit. Nintendo needs to do it.

Btw, Yugioh, is not a complex card game.

If Nintendo were to bring FE here, chances are they would let a company like Atlus do the localization and risk their own resources while Nintendo makes what it can off of royalties.

[big guy]

well, then there's the answer...have them pawn it off to atlus...but don't not bring it over.

double negatives are cool.

[WhiteFleck]

N_A, I've never heard how Romance of the Three Kingdoms fared here, but I don't care. But you see, what I don't get is that Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis is one of the GBA's highest-selling games.

[A Black Falcon]

Well... N_A finally makes a semi-valid point: Wargamers in the US are almost exclusively tabletop and PC gamers. That is true... and I'm sure it has hurt games like Ogre Battle in the past.

Still, they sell reasonably well, as the fact that Tactics Ogre on GBA sold well... so that kind of shows that there IS a market for that stuff here... and it would sell. Nintendo's refusal to bring it over here just doesn't make sense...

[OB1]

And Nintendo can afford to release some potential "average sellers" for the GBA because they would still get a big profit from that. The GC is a whole other story.