Slipping Away from the Pages of History: Taking a look at Celio, Wyler, and Sabre

 Introduction

The Archanean Fire Emblem games have a lot of characters; I’d even go as far as to say they have a ton of characters. FE1 in particular was notable for having nearly 50 playable characters. For an RPG game that came out in the early 90s on the Famicom, that's a big deal, and if you count boss characters, you have even more. But would you believe that there were going to be even more characters? Well, you probably did, but you’ve probably never heard anyone talk about them much in detail.

Today, I want to talk about three particular cut characters who I find particularly interesting: Celio, Wyler, and Sabre. Characters who were planned to show up in FE1, but were all cut for one reason or another. So, without further ado, let’s dive in and take a look at Celio, Wyler, and Sabre.  

Fan interpretations of Wyler, Sabre, and Celio drawn and/or edited by yours truly

The Gentle Sound of the Quiet Bow: An Analysis of Tomas: The Archanean Archer

 Introduction

Unlike my previous character analysis of Matthis, Tomas isn’t really a character that I feel is overhated or undeserving of the ridicule he gets, nor do I feel like I have to really play defense or anything like that. He’s still an unpopular character, don’t get me wrong, but that’s mostly due to the fact that people simply forget about his existence. And anyone who does remember him just sees him as a weak Archer who joins in the midgame, which…he is. 

When it comes to Archanea characters, some people may give them a lot of flak or write them off because they lack a lot of dialogue or any character, and Tomas is kind of one of the main poster boys of that notion. The guy straight-up doesn’t have lines of dialogue outside of death quotes in most of his appearances, so you’d expect this type of analysis to be devoid of substance. However, from the little we do get from this guy, I feel there is just enough for me to justify writing about him, talking about his character, and why I like him. So, let’s begin talking about Tomas, the Quiet Bow. 

A Reconditioned Classic - A Look at FE11's Localization

 Introduction

When I love a game, I try to learn as much about it as I possibly can. One of the things I find most fascinating about many of the games I play is how they change in their respective localizations. I really enjoy examining the text, graphics, and minute details in the Japanese versions and comparing them to their English counterparts. I love seeing how the localization team attempts to adapt a piece of media and judging how well they manage to transfer the original message. I also enjoy trying to get into the developers' and localization teams' heads to understand why and how something was changed. That's why I've always been a big fan of Clyde Mandelin's Legends of Localization website and have even bought some of his books.

One of my favorite games is Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon, and up until recently, it was the only Archanean FE game to be localized into English. Naturally, I wanted to learn more about how different FE11 was in English compared to its Japanese counterpart and other languages. While there are some wiki pages and sites like The Cutting Room Floor that list localization changes, there were no dedicated articles that compiled everything and discussed these changes in depth. That’s why I’m here today to share this blog post where I list and discuss many of the localization changes in FE11, in the same style as Clyde Mandelin's Legends of Localization series

A Knight's Burden: A Character Analysis of Matthis - The Dashing Fool

 Introduction

It's hard not to notice the series' large cast of characters when you play through the Fire Emblem franchise. Excluding boss characters, enemies, and NPCs, there are still hundreds of playable characters that span across the 17 mainline games. In fact, there are almost as many FE characters as there are Pokémon... probably. Anyways, amongst these colorful characters: some are loved, some are well-liked, some are forgettable, some are disliked by many, and some outright send people into a visceral rage when they’re even remotely brought up. Today, I’m going to discuss a character that’s part of the latter category. So, buckle up and get ready as I fly you to Macedon to talk about the courageous yet fear-ridden cavalier known as Matthis.

Swords and Syntax: How Fan Translations Shaped the History of Fire Emblem

Introduction

When it comes to Fire Emblem's long history, something that I find to be a bit overlooked is the history behind its fan translations. Since the series didn’t have much of an official foothold in the West until relatively recently, you’d imagine that a lot of the fandom lived and died based on the fan translations available to them. Despite that, there isn't much comprehensive coverage or documentation that pertains to the full history of these fan translations online.

That's a bit of a shame because a lot of the history of these translations is interesting in their own right. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that a lot of the drama regarding some of these translations rivals a lot of the internal drama regarding the development of the games themselves. That’s why I wanted to take it upon myself to document the numerous fan translations that exist for the series in one comprehensive blog post. So sit back and I hope you enjoy!