Some Fire Emblem Fates (Fire Emblem If in Japan) news! Some of it good, some of it not so good.
First, the good! Fire Emblem Fates is going to allow same-sex marriage. Because marriage is such an important part of the game, that’s a big deal! Nintendo tells Polygon “We believe that our gameplay experiences should reflect the diversity of the communities in which we operate and, at the same time, we will always design the game specifications of each title by considering a variety of factors, such as the game’s scenario and the nature of the game play.”
If you want to play it (literally) straight, male-female married couples will still make babies, same as they did in Awakening. But if your male MC hooks up with a male partner (or female MC hooks up with a female partner), they will unlock special combat ratings.
And now, the bad news! It seems that most of the multiple-edition bullshit present for the game’s Japanese release is making it over to the West.
“Fire Emblem Fates comes in two different versions, called the Conquest and Birthright editions,” Nintendo told Polygon. “In the US, Conquest and Birthright will both be sold separately, as is already the case in Japan. For those who have purchased either the Conquest or Birthright edition, a third edition will be made available as downloadable content at a later stage. Details on how the three storylines will be made available in other regions will be announced at a later date.”
Note that male/male marriage is available in one of the main editions, female/female in another, and both options are available in the third campaign. Which, while NoA is being silent on price and availability, is paid DLC in Japan.
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12 responses to “New Fire Emblem Has Same-Sex Marriage”
Omg, so 1 of these main editions will be bought by yaoi fans, whilst another will be bought by yuri fans & a third can be bought by both, let the same sex ship wars begin
While it’s nice seeing some movement on this sort of thing, it’s a bit weird that they’ve divided gay and lesbian into different editions. Is there an actual practical reason for this?
It’s Nintendo. If I want to trade my gay Snorlax with your lesbian Pikachu, then we’ll have to get both versions.
Kinda (not really) – as far as I can tell, there’s only one girl who you can pair other girls with, and one guy you can pair other guys with. So, its not as if same sex marriage is available for all characters, affecting all girls on one side and all boys on another. Not much of a reasoning I suppose, but it’s one.
It’s basically a war between two factions. Two different storylines with different core characters depending on which one you get. Both factions have one single character that can pursue a same-sex relationship with the player avatar.
My question is this: if the same-sex couples are unable to make babies, won’t that put them at a disadvantage?
A non-issue if adoption or surrogacy are options.
I read this as “they get a bonus to make up for it”, but I’m only assuming.
It’s very specific pairings.
They’ve flipped it around from Awakening where IIRC it was the mother character that each child character was linked to – in this case it seems each male character has a specific child instead.
I’ve lost track of which game is which in the translated titles, but in the ‘Black’ version, the male avatar can hook up with
Zero (white hair, eyepatch).Zero‘s daughterÉponinewill be their adopted daughter in that case. Looks like on the other side, the female/female pair don’t have any associated children.EDIT: Spoilered names just in case.
Whenever a marriage system comes out in a game, I’m always 100% curious as to the after-effects, such as spawning children with inherited abilities, or seeing if the storyline changes (Much like Luminous Arc 2)
I’m thinking this is a fan-service choice for that minority out there… If anything…
Oh, and whilst we’re on the topic of the new Fire Emblem and sex, isn’t 20% of the cast blood-related to your character?
Awakening had the characters inherit abilities randomly from their parents which allowed for some crazy metagaming. In particular it was possible to build Severa into a murder machine by pairing Donnel and Cordelia and managing to get her to inherit Donnel’s Aptitude skill (from the Villager class) and Cordelia’s Galeforce (from Dark Flier). Given the right equipment she’d have crazy high stats (+20% growth from aptitude) and the ability to move and attack twice in a turn provided she killed the first thing she attacks.
There’s no major storyline changes as a result of which characters are paired in the game (because in Fire Emblem outside of a few characters, everyone can die permanently) and the identities of the children are fixed – each of the female characters that can have kids has a specific one. Depending on the father they can have different hair color and the support dialogue and stuff that happens in-game around them changes.
And yeah, many of the characters in Fates are related to the player character. I’m fairly sure they’ll have disallowed direct sibling or parent/child relationships though. There were related characters in Awakening too, and they weren’t allowed (eg Chrom can’t marry his sister Lissa)
After reading the Iwata Asks for the game though, I think the concept of splitting it into three stories carries more depth than people might think. *Apparently* hardly anything is recycled between the three, and the writer claims to have submitted 500 pages worth of writing and character development for each one. It seems to be a lot more reasonable than other titles that have had split versions, at least.
As long as there’s same-sex divorce as well.