Fire Emblem

A chance to fail class changing just sounds awful in general. There's no good reason at all to implement something like that.

I'm also in the camp who would prefer zero character rehashes.

To put my opinion in a less negative way:

Personally, I'm the kind of person who thinks of new games as an opportunity to "make new friends" or more generally find more favorites. Reusing old ones is a waste though, since their old games haven't gone anywhere. If I'd wanted more Owain I'd have just replayed Awakening, you know? It's not like old characters disappear if they aren't constantly shoved in your face.

Plus there are places like FEH and Warriors for that sort of cross-over stuff, if you really want it.

Edited by Clarste on Feb 22nd 2019 at 9:01:31 AM

For the record, when I say "cameo," I was referring to the actual definition of a cameo appearance, AKA "a brief appearance." Meaning they don't "drag the story down" because such appearances are usually too brief.

Edited by dragonfire5000 on Feb 22nd 2019 at 9:03:01 AM

But then what would be the point of that? Besides shallow fanservice? That's like if Ephraim randomly popped up for five minutes at the beginning of a chapter or something in Path of Radiance. Why? What's the point? This isn't his game. He has nothing to do with what's going on. It would just break immersion.

You're still wasting the artist's time on portraits, which means less portraits to go around.

Alternatively it'd just be like the cameo characters from Awakening who were drawn by various artists with no effort to create a unified style.

It's clear that this takes place in another universe so a cameo like the ones in Thracia and Blazing Blade wouldn't work.

Also yeah, Ephraim running the cafeteria would be real dumb.

I'd be all for that, if only to see if there's a cafeteria left by the end of the game.

x4 I mean, cameos in general are meant to be brief moments of fanservice. Such appearances don't have to appear in story campaigns, so the example you gave wouldn't be the only way to have a cameo appearance.

Personally, I'd be thrilled if we got cameo appearances in the form of tapestries or something depicting events from other games that you can hang up around the school. How did such tapestries get made? Who cares?

Either way, if the fans (ie: the people in the thread) don't seem to want them, can you really call it fanservice?

In general, I think the fans of FE are way less tied to the past than IS seems to think. Like, we still love the old characters, but there's no real movement to put Ike into every game or anything. Whereas the devs seem to enjoy these cameos a little more than the players.

x2 There's a difference between a cute Shout-Out in the form of art or something or a brief, impersonal reference and a character from another game randomly smacked down in the middle of another universe and time though.

One is a fun reference to events past, one is immersion-breaking and transparent in its intentions.

Like Owain screaming names of old games in his special attacks is a fun reference. Ephraim, Ike, or Roy randomly working at the school...not so much.

The only cameos that would make sense without stretching credibility are people from the same world and the same timeline. Like Luthier showing up in the FE1 manga, because Archanea and Valentia are in the same world and around the same time. But people from other worlds and other times that shouldn't be there...well, shouldn't be there.

Edited by ILikeRobots on Feb 22nd 2019 at 9:23:15 AM

Personally, I enjoyed the cameos we got in the recent games. The Einjerjar DLC maps in '"Awakening are a blast to play, and the amiibo fights in Fates'' are pretty fun too.

I feel it would be pretty neat to have something like the above be in Three Houses: have the amiibos unlock a Fire Emblem version of a simulation where the students end up fighting the Greil Mercenaries or Roy's armies as a test of their strength.

Both can actually be considered different forms of cameos.

Edited by dragonfire5000 on Feb 22nd 2019 at 9:22:37 AM

It's a denotation versus connotation thing. For the most part from what I've seen/experienced, fans generally refer to non-character appearances and references with Easter Egg or Shout-Out.

Actual character appearances are generally called cameos.

Cameos themselves are basically Easter Eggs and Shout Outs, though you do have a point about cameos usually being actual appearances.

Which, I would like to point out, do not have to be actual parts of the story. Honestly, if there are cameos in Three Houses, I expect them to be relegated to DLC or bonus maps.

Edited by dragonfire5000 on Feb 22nd 2019 at 9:30:26 AM

Well, the original question was framed as "characters drawn by the new artist" so you were in fact specifically asking about characters who would appear in the game with portraits, rather than wall murals or whatever.

And entirely unlike Awakening's Enherjar, which were drawn by assorted guest artists.

Edited by Clarste on Feb 22nd 2019 at 9:32:54 AM

I wasn't actually just referring to character portraits, though I should've been a little more clear on that.

Well, "the new artist" wouldn't be drawing a mural or whatever anyway. That's more of a texture artist thing, rather than something a character designer would do.

And now you know.

Edited by Clarste on Feb 22nd 2019 at 9:38:01 AM

When I mentioned tapestries, I meant something along the lines of "the artist draws a poster that's presented in-game like a work of art." Think something like Kozaki's guest art for Super Smash Bros. presented as a painting in a video game, only the artist is drawing stuff from previous Fire Emblem games.

Also, I would appreciate it if you didn't do the "You were in fact saying..." assumption. I don't like it when people put words in my mouth. If I'm unclear about something, I'm always willing to try to clear things up; all you need to do is ask.

Okay, I don't like that idea since it doesn't match the artstyle of the setting. The fact that it matches the portrait artist makes it fit in even less since it implies it's, like, a photorealistic tapestry or something. That sounds really ugly to me in a game, honestly.

As for the attitude thing, keep in mind that my initial reaction to this was "fuck no" and from there on it seemed like you were continuously backpedaling so that no one could actually challenge your idea.

Edited by Clarste on Feb 22nd 2019 at 10:04:32 AM

In terms of a banner or mural, I'd prefer something super-stylized. That could be cool.

Fair enough; I personally don't have anything against it and really see such things as a way for the artist to showcase more art, but I won't begrudge anyone for not liking it.

Also, it's not backpedaling so that people can't challenge the idea, it's me trying to be more clear on what I meant since I realized I wasn't as clear as I could've been. I honestly didn't only mean having actual characters show up in-person when I said "cameo," and I wanted to clear that up.

Not sure what you assuming I was doing justifies the "You were in fact saying..." bit, but I won't dwell on it any longer. Just please don't do it again; I've seen how such assumptions end badly on some of the other threads on this site, and it's not fun at all when it gets into "bad faith" territory. Shouldn't be too hard to go "Hey, when you said X, did you mean...?" for clarification, right?

Edited by dragonfire5000 on Feb 22nd 2019 at 10:03:26 AM

We already have Heroes and Cipher for different artists drawing characters. No need for TH to awkwardly shove them in.

For what it's worth, there are some Falcom games that have actual posters of other, real Falcom games put up in-universe, but those exist in a more modern setting where a photorealistic poster on someone's wall seems plausible.

Cipher was actually one of the things in my mind when I originally asked the cameo question, though I was thinking things more along the lines of "current artist draws stuff from previous games" rather than "a bunch of guest artists draw stuff from previous games."

Maybe they can make such art covers for comic books. If Valentia has comic books, maybe Fodlan has them as well.

Alternatively, we can have cameos depicting characters from previous games as collectibles or stat-boosting items.

Edited by dragonfire5000 on Feb 22nd 2019 at 10:12:57 AM

Happy 12th birthday, Radiant Dawn! Still my favorite storywise!

Here's a fan translation of a 1996 roundtable discussion between Kaga and 3 fans about Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War.

Here is the abridged version, courtesy of Serenes Forest.