Trivia / Fire Emblem Fates

Lyrics to "Lost in Thoughts All Alone"

You are the ocean's gray waves, destined to seek
Life beyond the shore just out of reach,
Yet the waters ever change, flowing like time
The path is yours to climb.

In the white light, a hand reaches through;
A double-edged blade cuts your heart in two
Waking dreams fade away,
Embrace the brand-new day.

Sing with me a song of birthrights and love
The light scatters to the sky above.
Dawn breaks through the gloom, white as a bone
Lost in thoughts all alone.

You are the ocean's gray waves, destined to seek
Life beyond the shore just out of reach,
Yet the waters ever change, flowing like time
The path is yours to climb.

Embrace the dark you call a home,
Gaze upon an empty, white throne
A legacy of lies,
A familiar disguise.

Sing with me a song of conquest and fate
The black pillar cracks beneath its weight
Night breaks through the day, hard as a stone
Lost in thoughts all alone.

The path you walk on belongs to destiny, just let it flow
All of your joy and your pain will fall like the tide, let it flow.

Life is not just filled with happiness, nor sorrow
Even the thorn in your heart, in time it may become a rose.

A burdened heart sinks into the ground
A veil falls away without a sound
Not day nor night, wrong nor right
For truth and peace you fight.

Sing with me a song of silence and blood
The rain falls, but can't wash away the mud
Within my ancient heart dwells madness and pride
Can no one hear my cry?

In endless dreams, countless realms collide,
Hope falls only to rise like the changing tide
But all dreams come to an end,
Just whispers on the wind.

Sing with me one last time, for light's sacrifice,
Endless dawn came but not without a price,
Lost in the waves there glimmers, a pale blue stone.
I think of you, all alone.

You are the ocean's gray waves, destined to seek
Life beyond the shore just out of reach,
Yet the waters ever change, flowing like time
The path is yours to climb.
You are the ocean's gray waves.

• Acting for Two:
  • In Japanese:
    • Mitsuhiro Ichiki voices both Hinata and his son Hisame.
    • Corrin and Kana are both voiced by their same actors in the Japanese release.
    • Yuuki Kuwahara voices both Effie and Ophelia.
    • Juri Kimura voices both Mozu and Nyx.
    • Nozomi Sasaki voices both Felicia and Oboro.
    • Akinori Egoshi voices Benny's son Ignatius and Iago.
    • Nobunaga Shimazaki voices Corrin and Anankos' human form.
  • In English:
    • Ben Diskin voices Jakob, Saizo, and Hayato.
    • David Stanbra voices Xander, Siegbert, Kaze, Shura, and Sumeragi.
    • Sarah Blandy voices Kagero and Kaze's daughter Midori.
    • Matthew Mercer voices Azama, Ryoma, and Azura's son Shigure.
    • Danielle Judovits voices Azama's daughter Mitama, Female Kana, Lilith, and Female Corrin's first voice option.
    • Stephanie Sheh voices Beruka, Silas's daughter Sophie (who can be Beruka's daughter) and Hayato's daughter Rhajat.
    • Marcella Lentz-Pope voices Scarlet and Female Corrin's second voice option.
    • Paula Tiso voices Camilla and Orochi.
    • Stephanie Lemelin voices Rinkah, Reina, and Female Corrin's third voice option.
    • Yuri Lowenthal voices Marth, Takumi's son Kiragi, and Male Corrin's second voice option.
    • Cam Clarke voices Arthur, Hinata, Male Corrin's first and third voice options, and Anankos' human form.
    • Julie Ann Taylor voices Selena and Subaki's daughter Caeldori (a potential daughter of Selena).
    • Gideon Emery voices Keaton, Jakob's son Dwyer, and Saizo's son Asugi.
    • Kaiji Tang voices Odin, Ryoma's son Shiro, and Benny's son Ignatius.
    • Liam O'Brien voices Laslow, Izana, and Zola.
    • Elizabeth Daily voices Hinoka, Peri, and Kaden's daughter Selkie (who can be potentially mothered by either Peri or Hinoka).
    • John Rubenstein voices Subaki and Iago.
    • Amber Hood voices Nyx and Laslow's daughter Soleil (a potential daughter for Nyx).
    • Travis Willingham voices Hans and King Garon.
    • Natalie Lander voices Elise and Niles' daughter Nina (a potential daughter for Elise).
    • Max Mittelman voices Kaden, Leo, and his son Forrest.
    • Marisha Ray voices Mikoto, Oboro (the retainer of Mikoto's stepson, Takumi), and Effie.
    • Roger Rose voices Takumi, Niles, and Hinata's son Hisame.
    • Angela Marie Volpe voices Ophelia and Velouria.
• Actor Allusion: In her supports with Camilla where she is offered to learn knitting, Hinoka voices her eagerness to start by saying "I'm feeling stabby!" These exact words are also uttered as one of the critical pop-in quotes of Peri in the localization, with whom Hinoka shares her English voice actor Elizabeth Daily.
• All-Star Cast: The Japanese version stars Nobunaga Shimazaki, Satomi Sato, Yūichi Nakamura, Kaori Nazuka, Yuki Kaji, Hisako Kanemoto, Katsuyuki Konishi, Mamoru Miyano and Miyuki Sawashiro. And that's just the main cast.
• Blooper: When Ike introduces himself, he says "I'm with the the Greil Mercenaries".
• The Cast Showoff:
  • In the English dub, Rena Strober gets to show off her chops as a Broadway actress by playing Azura and doing her singing voice.
  • In the English dub of the Heirs of Fate DLC, Matthew Mercer gets to sing as Shigure.
• Defictionalization: Azura's pendant is available for 12,000 yen.
• Creator Backlash: Many of the game developers openly discussed disliking the "face petting" mechanic, and did their best to make it less uncomfortable during development. Tellingly, when the game was localized, the developers gave their blessing to the Treehouse localization staff to adjust it.
• Died During Production: Gunter's (and Anankos') Japanese voice actor, Rokurō Naya, passed away in November 2014, seven months before the Japanese release of Fates.
• Dummied Out:
  • There are unused skills called Armor Shield and Beast Shield and skill items to teach them within the game, as well as skill items for the enemy-exclusive Winged Shield and Bold Stance skills, but there is no legitimate way to access them.
  • Equippable accessory-versions of Sumeragi and Garon's crowns (aptly called Hoshido Crown and Dark Crown respectively) exist among other accessories, but ended up unused. The former is meant to increase the damage taken during MyCastle battles by 2, while the latter is meant to lower it by that same amount instead.
  • There is a whole third set of Renown Rewards that were scrapped for unknown reasons. Not only are most of the items listed in the chart only normally available via DLC or ended up unused (such as the skill books meant to teach the unused Armor and Beast Shields), its final reward is the Master Emblem, a scrapped shield item that gives any unit +1 in all stats.
  • In the international versions of Fates, both Birthright and Conquest’s final chapter have pre-battle quotes for many characters who normally can't be recruited in that path. The quotes are even different from their pre-battle quotes in the paths they'd normally be in, unlike the Japanese quotes that are literally the same in both paths.
  • Corrin's dragon form has a fully functional animation for attacking from a distance (though no projectile was ever assigned to it), despite them being only able to attack adjacent enemies as a dragon in the final game.
  • Lilith's human form has graphics for a Critical Cut-In animation, even though she never enters battle via this form.
  • There are 6 weapons — Bamboo Yumi, Caltrop, Harp Yumi, Rinkah's Club, Sidelong Yumi, and Robin Primer — which have unique 3D models within the game's files but, due to a mistake, end up using the appearance of generic bronze weapons instead.
  • The Japanese version of Fates contains scrapped supports for both Male Kana and Shigure as siblings, and for Beruka and Selkie as mother and daughter, both instances which are impossible in the final game, as Male Kana is always an offspring for Female Corrin, and Beruka has no supports coded with Kaden at all.
• Fake American: Gideon Emery is British but voices Jakob's son Dwyer with an American accent.
• Fake Brit: American actors Ben Diskin and Liam O'Brien give Jakob and Laslow British accents in the localization.
• Fan Translation: Similar to Pokémon Black and White, there was a project to translate the game entirely to English (requiring 3DS homebrew which itself required outdated firmware) before the official localization comes out.
• Flip-Flop of God: An interesting case has happened post-release surrounding Arete and Mikoto's relationship. In Revelation, it's mentioned both are sisters and Valla royalty, and yet, the release of Pellucid Crystal (the game's official artbook) in 2019 retconned them into being distantly related, only for Fire Emblem Heroes's "Meet the Heroes" page for Arete in 2021 to undo the last change, thus making them actual sisters once more.
• God Never Said That:
  • Head writer Shin Kibayashi neither disowned the Fates plot nor said that he hated it on Twitter. He merely stated that he wrote the basic draft of the story, so he felt that it was unfair to give him all the credit when there was a whole writing team behind it.
  • Rena Strober (Azura's English VA) never claimed she was completely blind during the recording process. She didn't know much about Azura when she auditioned, but she was given proper information as it became relevant and she interjected when stories began falsely accusing Nintendo of withholding information from her.
  • Also no, Yusuke Kozaki never compared Camilla to a cow. That was Toshiyuki Kusakihara, the art director, during a group interview for an artbook.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes:
  • The Nintendo eShop discontinued 3DS support on March 31st, 2023, which renders the Revelation route unobtainable as well as the route opposite of each game version. All of the DLC Xenologues are also now unobtainable without pirating/hacking or getting a used copy with the DLC already installed. Worst of all, the game as a whole was delisted from the 3DS eShop in Japan and the EU the month before it shuttered (the US eShop delisting it and all DLC the same month as the shutdown).
  • The Special Edition saw a limited run when this game first came out and was never made available digitally. Copies of it now usually cost a very pretty penny, especially if it’s the complete set.
• Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition: The pre-order exclusive Special Edition comes with all main three routes (Birthright, Conquest, and Revelation) on one cart, alongside an art book.
• Mandela Effect: The third path, called Revelation in international releases, is often called Revelations by many players even today.
• Marth Debuted in "Smash Bros.": After several jokes over this trope for the series, in the West, Corrin LITERALLY debuted in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U.
• Meme Acknowledgement: Leo's English voice actor, Max Mittelman, has referenced all the tomato jokes surrounding Leo at least once.
• Milestone Celebration: The games' release in Japan marks the 25th year of the franchise since its debut in 1990.
• New Work, Recycled Graphics: A number of assets are reused from Fire Emblem: Awakening. Most of the returning Skills use the exact same icons, the resistance HQ at the start of Birthright Chapter 14 is the barracks from Awakening (complete with an Awakening-style Armor Knight shield lying next to the crates), and some classes that wield axes use the animations of the Awakening Fighter and its promotions.
• No Export for You: There are two chapters in Japanese DLC pack #3 that are absent from North American/European DLC pack #2.^note The first DLC pack in North America/Europe consists of the entirety of the first two packs from the Japanese version.
• Playing Against Type:
  • While a nice and shy character like Sakura is someone Brianna Knickerbocker would voice, Charlotte is a whole different story. She's a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing that likes to flirt with men.
  • Matthew Mercer tends to voice serious characters with a baritone like Ryoma, so Shigure and Azama are far cries from his usual roles. Azama is a jovial, silly, and playful wise monk, while Shigure is a calm, soft-spoken, serene singer with a younger-sounding voice.
  • Max Mittelman uses a deeper voice register for Leo to the point that many have mistaken his role as being David Vincent's, which is a stark contrast to his younger voice he uses for Forrest and Kaden.
  • Ben Diskin is usually known for voicing either nerdy young boys or hammy adult men. While someone like Hayato is right up his alley, both Jakob and Saizo are very serious characters with Saizo in particular having a very deep voice.
• Queer Character, Queer Actor: Cam Clarke, an openly gay actor, provides the voice for Male Corrin, who can marry Niles in Conquest and Revelation.
• Refitted for Sequel: A few gameplay mechanics like Personal Skills and Dragon Veins, were originally meant to be in Fire Emblem: Awakening, but were not included in the end. Instead, they became included here from the start.
• Role Reprise:
  • Karen Strassman returns to voice the series' pseudo-mascot Anna.
  • Julie Ann Taylor, Liam O'Brien, Stephanie Sheh, Gideon Emery, and Kaiji Tang return to voice characters they played in Fire Emblem: Awakening (or their Expies). Taylor plays Selena (Severa) and Caeldori (Expy of Cordelia), O'Brien plays Laslow (Inigo), Sheh plays Rhajat (Expy of Tharja), Emery plays Asugi (Expy of Gaius), and Tang plays Odin (Owain).
  • Yuri Lowenthal reprises his role as Marth from Codename: S.T.E.A.M..
  • Jason Adkins returns from Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn to voice Ike. This would be the last time he would voice Ike before Greg Chun took over the role.

• Urban Legend of Zelda:
  • Not long after the game was released, someone on Serene's Forest claimed to have dug through the script and discovered that Azura and Silas were the original bi options. This spread like wildfire among the fandom, and despite the poster never giving evidence to back up their claims and other people giving proof to the contrary, people still sprout the rumor as fact.
  • It was rumored that Asugi and Rhajat were each other's fastest supports. In reality, the rule about fast support growths only applies to the parents. This likely started because in Awakening, Gaius and Tharja, whom Asugi and Rhajat are expies and implicit previous incarnations of, respectively, were each other's fastest supports.
  • There were many, many fake rumors about the plot and the gameplay before the game's release, including but not limited to: Sakura falling victim to a Cruel and Unusual Death in Conquest, male Corrin applying "corrective rape" to Soleil in their already polemic supports, Ryoma personally attacking the temporarily ill Elise in Conquest, jail prisoners being tortured or violated to get them to join the group, male Kana being rejected in a deliberately rude way in his S supports like Caeldori, or the ending dialogue of Revelation being different if male Corrin married Azura. While most of these rumors have died out, Soleil's is persistent.
  • It's also said that Hoshido and Nohr donated their northern territories to aid Valla's reconstruction in Revelation. While both countries do give land, the game never actually specifies what part of their land.
  • When the game first came out and the A+ rank support option was discovered, it was assumed by some that it was effectively the Gay Option for units, with some going so far as to say that it locked the units out of S supports with the opposite sex. In reality, the A+ rank allows two units to gain the other's base or secondary class via a Friendship Seal, with characters being able to have an S and A+ rank support at the same time.
  • It's said in some circles that Kagero (or at the very least, her design) was initially intended to be the original older Hoshidan sister instead of Hinoka. Not only there are no official sources supporting this, the Fire Emblem 25th Anniversary Book even mentions at one point that said older Hoshidan sister didn't even exist in Kibayashi's initial draft.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The skinship minigame was originally much more extreme, with the cursor being a hand and the ability to touch the character anywhere on their body, though it would have been limited to whoever Corrin married. It was to the point that even some of the developers considered it disgusting, and Nintendo ultimately agreed with them and asked to tone it down. Even the toned down version didn't sit well with the team, leading to them essentially gutting it in the Western release.
  • Hinata and Hisame were originally planned to be twin brothers instead of father and son. This was changed because there would have been too many first generation Samurai. (It also would have meant there were three sets of twins in the army!)
  • Hinoka didn't exist in the first drafts of the story. She was included because Kozaki doodled her up one day and requested that she be one of the royals.
  • The typical "early designs having different hairstyles and hair colors" thing — Takumi was originally planned to be a redhead like Hinoka and Sakura, but was given silver hair in the final product, while Corrin was supposed to have black hair by default just like their mother.
  • The original proposal for Fates, included in the "Making of Fire Emblem" book, had Corrin set, designed, and referred to as a male, suggesting he was planned to be a straight-up non-customizable Lord in the vein of Marth. Presumably the change to an Avatar and the option to play female came in later.
  • Azura was originally planned to have different supports with Female Kana if she was her mother, depending on the route, like she does with Corrin.
  • The artbook contains concept art of a "Hoshido Dragon" in its "Boss Design" section. Given that its Nohrian counterpart, the Blight Dragon, is the Final Boss of Birthright, it's likely that Conquest's Final Boss, Takumi, was originally planned to turn into a dragon. The same section contains artwork labelled "Vallite Dragon", which looks like Corrin's dragon form with copious amounts of Body Horror. It's possible these were either going to be regular enemies in Revelation or were early designs for Anankos.
    • On a related note, the artbook contains concept art for a Boar Spirit weapon which never ended up being implemented into the game.
  • Game data suggests that Candace and Nichol were originally meant to be regular party members rather than capturable bosses, as their names are listed among the main army and they are the only bosses with critical cut-ins and official Twitter icons.
  • Similar hidden data suggests Hans, Iago, and Zola were meant to get Critical Cut-In portraits at one point in development, as they have specific lines assigned for such case that go unused during battle (the lines in question ended up used during specific story scenes in the Birthright and Conquest routes).
  • An early draft for Birthright's Chapter 15 reveals there was initially meant to be a Lightning Tribe in Mount Garou rather than the Wolfskin. They had to be cut from the game as the developers ran into issues rendering the lightning effects they would've used in battle. Also, the fact that the alternate outcome of the chapter in which Kaze can be saved is nowhere to be seen in that script suggests it was a late addition.
• Working Title: The Latest in the Fire Emblem Series outside of Japan on the game's first reveal. Then the second trailer seems to shorten it to just Fire Emblem, before becoming Fire Emblem Fates at E3 2015.

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