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Apparently even the staff got into arguments regarding character inclusion:
On Corrin's gender:
Re: Character representation
This months issue of Nintendo Dream contains a lengthy interview with a couple of developers working on Fire Emblem Warriors. The Japanese magazine spoke with producer Yosuke Hayashi and director Hiroya Usuda. The interview covers some old topics, but also expands on previous interviews and throws new discussions into the mix as well.
Hayashi and Usuda first elaborated on Fire Emblem Warriors origins. The interview later talks about how the represented characters and games were chosen, including heated conversations between the developers, going with Shadow Dragon over the original game, choosing female Corrin over her male counterpart, and more. Theres also talk about the original characters and how their designs were updated after seeing the new characters in Fire Emblem Heroes and plenty of other topics.
You can read the full Nintendo Dream interview with Hayashi and Usuda below.
Apparently even the staff got into arguments regarding character inclusion:
Hayashi: Because we want to make it a Warriors game where you can properly use the distinguished classes. Even so, if we were to put in protagonists from every series, most of them would end up becoming Lords. In that case everyone would have swords, so there wouldnt be any strategic systems with switching characters or even anything else. So just like how we chose three 3D titles in Hyrule Warriors, were doing the same selection method too this time. That means we want to put an emphasis on the gameplay of switching classes, so we went on with narrowing down the titles However, just like the fans, even a number of our own staffs cannot fathom it.
Hayashi: Some staff even got into quarrels with us to the point that they were saying Im going to leave this project. They said bizarre things like Hayashi doesnt know anything about Fire Emblem!. Even I had to make this bitter decision, because if we didnt narrow them down it wouldnt develop into [proper] gameplay! (laughs)
ND: Its precisely because they have fondness towards the characters. So how did you manage to convince them?
Hayashi: If this game is well-received, we may be able to make a sequel (laughs). Thats why this time wed like to narrow it down.
On Corrin's gender:
ND: I feel refreshed. Speaking of which, the Kamui/Corrin announced this time is the female one.
Hayashi: We intentionally made Kamui/Corrin into the female one. Because we dont want the [main] visual weve announced right now to consist of only males, and female Corrin is also very popular. Even so, its still hectic for us to choose which characters to put in after settling with the three titles.
Re: Character representation
Hayashi: We had a really hectic time in choosing them. At first our company considered from the weapons first and sent the proposal
- , but Intelligent Systems pointed us to the results of popularity polls, and Nintendo also told us please add this character, so we adjusted it little by little.
ND: Will the appearing characters be equally numbered from each series?
Usuda: They wont be exactly equal. In exchange for that, the total number of characters is a lot for the first title in a collaborative Warriors game.
Hayashi: Other collaboration Warriors including Hyrule Warriors at first only had around eight to fifteen characters, but this time it will exceed them in a large scale. Theyre being physically added so its getting hectic, but we feel we must pour our full effort here. Even so, the fans will still end up thinking its not enough. So although we do feel sorry about that, were doing our utmost to our limits.
Re: The main protagonists:
Hayashi: Yes. Since both Awakening and Fates are in, there are a lot of characters designed by Kozaki Yusuke-san coming out. So as a basis, we intended to gather them to become pictures that dont look too different from them. However, in Heroes, there are also protagonists of siblings based on gold.
Usuda: When we showed them to Nintendo and Intelligent Systems, proclaiming These are our original characters for this time, Shion/Rowan and Lianna!, they said Actually were creating sibling characters like these and showed the [then] unannounced characters. Then Heroes also had gold and white, and especially Sharon/Sharena and Lianna were way too similar to each other, including their background settings
Hayashi: They told us Hayashi-san, your team also did it with gold, huh!? (laughs). Thats why we revisited the designs, and we made some adjustments to them like changing their hair color.
Usuda: Although the changes were quite hectic, I personally am very glad that we could match up with the original team. Like, our minds think alike!
Final Message:
Hayashi: Weve created this game while always thinking about what Fire Emblem fans desire, so we think this should be satisfactory. If youve played Fire Emblem Warriors and get to like characters you havent been acquainted with before, there will have been even more of a reason for us to have created the game. And also for those who dont know about Fire Emblem, there are a lot of appealing characters appearing, so I think youll definitely get to like someone here. We will still announce a lot of characters up until release, so please look forward to them.
Usuda: Fire Emblem Warriors has been always a Warriors game for Fire Emblem fans from the start, and weve decided to create it for people who have always played Fire Emblem. Homages are being spread all over the place, including the [gameplay] system. Also, in order to make this enjoyable by people who play Fire Emblem but arent good with action games, were creating this so that it can also be played easier and more casually. This game will be playable even if you dont know Warriors/Musou, so please feel free to try it out.