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Fire Emblem: Three Houses primarily developed by Koei Tecmo, IntSys supplied "minimum" staff

Taka

Taka

Member
Apr 27, 2018
989
The big Three Houses Famitsu Interview has been translated (more at the link):

Yokota: We decided that we wanted to release a Fire Emblem game on Nintendo Switch by the end of 2019 at the latest. However, it was looking like regular development was going to take some extra time, so we looked into getting another developer in the mix in order to shorten the length of production. At pretty much that exact same time, Koei Tecmo was making FE Warriors for us, and as a result of consulting with Mr. Hayashi (head of Koei Tecmo's Team Ninja), we ended up asking the Kou Shibusawa team to help out. That's how things went.

Kusakihara: Speaking of the Kou Shibusawa team, they're well-renowned for making SRPGs – they're the best of the best. We knew it'd be great if we could get them on board, so we started hashing plans out again. It was only after we decided to work with the Kou Shibusawa team that we considered their sense of world-building with three balanced kingdoms.

That's interesting. The setting in Three Houses where three different kingdoms are at war is certainly like Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

Kusakihara: In regards to staffing, Intelligent Systems provided Koei Tecmo with a minimum crew of several designers, a music composer, and an adviser to the programmers – not including myself, of course. We then left Koei Tecmo in charge of basic game development.

Was there any aspect of this style of development that you were particularly happy with?

Kusakihara: To put it simply, it was just fun (laughs). Koei Tecmo rounded up workers who were fans of the series, so the team was really motivated all throughout development. In the beginning, I was wondering what kind of pace they'd be able to keep, but as it turns out, the Kou Shibusawa team's development skills are limitless! (laughs) I accidentally got a little greedy there and went overboard on the size of the game.

Yokota: Yeah, we never intended to put this much stuff in the game (laughs). It's gotta be about twice as big as we set out to make.
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Indeed the credits are now on Youtube and you can count the aforementioned IntSys staff at the top (a total of 17!) while the rest is all Tecmo:




Should be noted that this team is not Team Ninja nor the Musou/Warriors team, as mentioned in the interview it's the team behind the Romance of the Three Kingdoms series of strategy games. This series is actually very popular and prestigious in Japan.

An interesting exception: The scenario lead is named as Yuki Ikeno, with Ryohei Hayashi and Mari Okamoto as the other scenario writers. All three of them were Tecmo Koei writers for Fire Emblem Warriors.

It's incredible that these folks cranked out probably the best Fire Emblem story since Path of Radiance, and arguably the best since Genealogy of the Holy War.

An impressive result for their first time on Fire Emblem!
 
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.exe

.exe

Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,241
I kind of want to say that that explains all the jank but maybe that's a bit harsh. Still. Damn. It sure has many technical issues.

Also, leave it to KT/Omega Force to put a bunch of extra characters (battalions) on screen, haha.
 
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Soulflarz

Soulflarz

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,807
Is...that good or bad? Not surprising, I dont think FE formula is exact hell to replicate, but...
 
FiXalaS

FiXalaS

Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,569
Kuwait.
then they did a great job

Technically game needs lots of refinements, but the gameplay so far, the mechanics and everything else outside of graphics is incredibly fun and I can't stop playing. Kudos!
 
Sterok

Sterok

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,084
You know when Warriors came out and sold a million I joked that this was a clear sign that Koei should develop the mainline games while IS sticks to gacha goodness.

I mean Three Houses is good so far, but I wasn't that serious.
 

Deleted member 41183

User requested account closure
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Mar 18, 2018
1,882
Seems like they traded a larger scope for a little bit (understating...) of jankiness. IntSys has only really made one HD game, and no HD Fire Emblems, so if it had just been them primarily thw game would probably have been smaller in scope and/or taken longer.
 
Tibarn

Tibarn

Member
Oct 31, 2017
13,370
Barcelona
So basically IS work was to direct the game, as they have several directors (even an Assitant DirCetor, whatever this means), and provided the music and the main artist. Speaking of the main artist now that I know the name, I have searched some other work and oh boy...

tumblr_pkc58sNhA81rvtm26o1_1280.jpg

It seems that Dimitri's design was taken from some BL named Captivate Prince (yep, it fits really well). This makes even more disappointing that the game has not enough gay romance options.
 
Admiral Woofington

Admiral Woofington

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
14,892
Huh. Now the odd decision to remove character customization entirely only for a few CG cutscenes makes a bit more sense. Still one of the oddest decisions considering that's the only major difference from what the previous two mcs had
 
Comic Obsessed

Comic Obsessed

Member
Oct 27, 2017
9,792
Peru
I guess the main FE team must be doing something else but that's either a Genealogy of the Holy War remake or a brand new entry and I find both kinda dubious since the former shouldn't take too much focus and the latter shouldn't happen so soon considering how much Three Houses has shaken up the formula.
Mekanos said:
There hasn't been a Paper Mario game since 2004, not sure what you mean.
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The best Paper Mario came out in 2007.
 
Ryszard

Ryszard

Member
Apr 7, 2018
395
My copy of the game is still waiting, so I'm going to be positive and think that, if IS didn't do this game, they have to be working in something else and shouldn't be far away.
 
Maxina

Maxina

Banned
Oct 28, 2017
3,308
Kusakihara: In the beginning, I was wondering what kind of pace they'd be able to keep, but as it turns out, the Kou Shibusawa team's development skills are limitless! (laughs) I accidentally got a little greedy there and went overboard on the size of the game.

Yokota: Yeah, we never intended to put this much stuff in the game (laughs). It's gotta be about twice as big as we set out to make.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Reminds me of what Morimoto said about the development of Pokemon Heartgold/Soulsilver, and we all know how those games turned out. I respect developers with this kind of passion to fill games with as much content as possible, and you really do get your monies worth.
 
Serene

Serene

Community Resettler
Member
Oct 25, 2017
52,534
I hope they continue this arrangement then. Enjoying the hell out of Three Houses.
 
Trrzs

Trrzs

Member
Oct 29, 2017
1,131
I can't wait for that IS game we all are waiting for...
Codename S.T.E.A.M. 2
 
Strings

Strings

Member
Oct 27, 2017
31,426
They should have used less IS designers. The objective and map design in KT's SRPGs is usually a lot better than this.

Also, this isn't that weird for FE. Just that it's usually spread around more studios, instead of concentrated on just one.
Mr. Pointy said:
Paper Mario: Sticker Star 2
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They already made that for some reason.
 
Raijinto

Raijinto

self-requested ban
Banned
Oct 28, 2017
10,091
Well then I'm keeping my fingers crossed for Fates 2 next year then! Best of both worlds.
 
Mbolibombo

Mbolibombo

Member
Oct 29, 2017
7,043
Cool, which makes me think we're gonna get Paper Mario Color Splash DX and Warioware something next year from Int.sys.

But it would be cool to see the Thousand Year door make the move to Switch. Considering the recent events on twitter :P
 
Dany1899

Dany1899

Member
Dec 23, 2017
4,219
Uh I was expecting an opposite scenario where Koei Tecmo supported IS, not vice versa. But I am really liking Three Houses, so they good a very good work
 
HBK

HBK

Member
Oct 30, 2017
7,986
The battles so far feel 100% Fire Emblem to me.

What's in between the battles however, feels more like a cheap ass RPG.

Why can't we have good things...
 
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