A Fire Emblem Sandbox game?

[phenom]

Have anyone else think there should be a Fire Emblem where you can make your own character/army? I always thought of a game like that since I first got into Fire Emblem. Or maybe a game that chooses your character's decisions that would affect the story. Like the duo story in Sacred Stones, but much more interactive.

[Virgil von Visconti]

I agree and like this idea. Especially since the creators of Fire Emblem seem to be attempting to actually do it, as shown in Fire Emblem 12's Create a warrior.

I am less excited about the creation of an entire armies worth of units for a Fire Emblem game. As I have a feeling that would lead to generic back stories and generic support conversations. Since Fire Emblem's characters and support are a large part of the charm of the game I would prefer if most of the characters were creations from the game makers implementation.

Still it seems like the CREATE A CHARACTER implementation is a step in the right direction. The question is, how can it be implemented further? Perhaps a different created character each arc? Creating a main character switching arc like Fire Emblem 10 might be nifty. Alternatively sequels that download your army leader from previous games. Or a role like the tactician from 7, that actually does something would be nice. Any ideas in this respect intrigue me.

Oddly the interactive decision making route I'm skeptical about. I agree that it would be a good idea in concept. But after playing Fire Emblem 8 I think massive implementation of choice and multiple conflicts would make the game too easy. As it did for 8.

However if you mean choices the player makes while still in a linear story progression that would affect say what your final weapon was, which nation you became affiliated with, and who the final boss is then this becomes more interesting. It still leaves room for making the game a little too easy for my liking, but the creative possibility is there.

Oddly if the game was not Fire Emblem; but rather Fire Emblem-like I could see this implemented to a large degree. Heck you could even have unit promotions based around the decisions that each unit makes. The negation of a support conversation system for a choice system might make entire create a character armies both possible and fun; providing there's a small number of story characters who you must recruit; providing a stable personality for the various characters to converse with. Ya I could see that working well.

SUMMARY:
it seems to me like you want the implementation of strategy into a tactics game. I'm not sure how this would work with their current formula; since its somewhat restrictive and might not be as fun with all the additional stuff added. However it seems possible with something just a little different would be able to implement it fine.

I am a fan of massive create a character implementation. However I think it must be done creatively; something I would like to hear from others.

[Viktor]

I agree with Virgil. It's a good idea but under no circumstances should it interfere with the character backstories. I present to you and idea I have that I believe may work out very well:

You get characters as 'recruits' that are similar to FE8's recruits but not identical at all. You would get to choose class, appearance(maybe slightly limited) and various statistics(Maybe all stats and growths but I think that would be overdoing it because each character would become identical and therefore boring) for the characters as they grow while they each still have their own backstories.

I don't know, I'm just sharing this random idea I have. Support it, tear it down, do with it what you will...

[Virgil von Visconti]

Adding onto Viktors approach let us take the ideas from Final Fantasy Tactics, of the ability to hire additional troops. Obviously having an infinite number of troops in a Fire Emblem game style game would not be a good idea unless the levels were designed to either require sacrifice, or be hard enough that death of many units was inevitable.

Following Viktor's idea I say we ave a main character representing the main hero, then have the pre-made characters be those who need to have a set personality. and have the Original characters be those who come at the end of a level, are required by the story, or who are join because of political interests. Of course having a default appearance, name and ability would be required for those players who don't care about customization.

Regarding customization I could see Viktor's idea working like this... Each character gets a number of character creation options limited by the situation in which they were recruited. Obviously the main character would have all of them and then some. At each promotion, the player in question would get new options, but would of course be allowed to keep the appearance of their character the same, with the exception of perhaps necessary promotion related gear on their characters. Unfortunately this format really only works with 3D animation instead of the 2D that is present on most Fire Emblems.
I say unfortunately, because that pretty much means we would need to hire a team of 3D artists to actually make a project like this work.

In regards to Growth rates, I say allow the player's choices in game to influence the growth rate of the characters he recruits. For example, if the players actions causes a town to get raided; the survivor who joins your party later would have a high HP gain.

[Love]

Now just to be clear, we are clearly not talking about hacking a base Fire Emblem game and changing it to include your own characters and turn the game into your own weird sandbox thing?

[Wyatt]

Being that the last post was 8 months ago, I don't think we are talking about anything anymore.

[Yaen]

If you can show me one instance where length of time has ever had any relevance here, I'll give you a foot rub. I had a four year discussion with Gabriel, remember?

[Hal]

She was asking a question to people who haven't logged in since atleast November