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At the Japan Expo in Paris this week, several concept art pieces for the three main lords in Fire Emblem: Three Houses were revealed, and co-directors Toshiyuki Kusakihara and Genki Yokota were interviewed as well, revealing new details on the game. [Thanks, Serenes Forest!]
Early concept art
Edelgard
Claude & Dimitri
Here are the highlights from the interview:
- The game project has gone smoothly thanks to Koei Tecmo’s passion and familiarity with the simulation genre, with titles like Nobunaga’s Ambition and Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Intelligent Systems was in charge of the artistic direction and game design, and Koei Tecmo did the programming.
- There are three main online features – Global Activity, Exchange Student, and Lost Spirits. Global Activities show what other players have chosen when making choices, if you want to see how things are trending between players. Exchange Students essentially is choosing a student from your game to send over to other players’ games, who may choose to buy the student for use in combat under certain conditions. Finally, Lost Spirits is a feature where you’ll be able to see where units in other players’ armies have fallen in combat, which shows where difficult areas may be. Surviving in those tiles will give you extra bonuses.
- Multiplayer PvP, which was previously in Fire Emblem Fates, is not returning.
- The weapon triangle is not as visible as in previous games, in that the effects are only regained using certain weapon skills, and not inherent to types of weapons.
- Amiibos will unlock music from each characters’ respective games in optional battles. Current Fire Emblem series character amiibo include Marth, Ike, Lucina, Robin, Roy, Corrin (M), Corrin (F), Chrom, Tiki, Alm, and Celica.
- Finally, Kusakihara states that it took him 80 hours to finish one Three Houses story path, without skipping dialogue or cutscenes. As such, he states that it might take over 200 hours to beat all three paths.
Fire Emblem: Three Houses releases for Nintendo Switch on July 26, 2019. Check out its latest 10-minute overview trailer here, and an introduction to The House of the Black Eagles here.
