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"Without the Help of Koei Tecmo, it simply wouldn't be possible." - Fire Emblem: The Three Houses interview

foxuzamaki

foxuzamaki

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Oct 25, 2017
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This is a large interview that goes over multiple points,like how they did not know awakening would blow up the way it did.
To tell you the truth, it was a very big surprise," Three Houses director at Intelligent Systems Toshiyuki Kusakihara says of Awakening's success. "To tell you more, I can say… I honestly still don't understand why it was such a success, as we didn't realize – we didn't make any change to our philosophy to make Awakening be liked outside Japan.

"I still don't understand why it's so popular," he adds with a laugh. "It's strange."
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Which led to them becoming more aware of the western audience
Kusakihara says that Awakening's legacy runs deep – right through to the team now being more aware of their Western audience and their tastes when developing a new title.
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"When making games, it's really difficult to be loved by everyone. But it's easier to start thinking 'what should I do not to be disliked by everyone' – this way of thinking is easier,"
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Which eventuslly leads to the title
The hope is that Three Houses will be the biggest and best entry in the series to date – but coming off the back of 3DS games, Intelligent Systems couldn't make a RPG of the scale of Fire Emblem: Three Houses alone – and that's where Tecmo Koei come in.
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"As far as this game goes, I'm pretty sure that without the help of Koei Tecmo it simply wouldn't have been possible," Kusakihara says of the studio.

"Or maybe it was possible, but it would have taken a lot more time," adds Genki Yokota, Three Houses' director on the Nintendo side of development.
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"Regarding the design aspect – Koei Tecmo didn't do so much," Kusakihara clarifies. "It was especially us at Intelligent Systems who did all of the graphics and design. For example, we had the help of a freelance illustrator Kazuma Koda [Nier Automata, Bayonetta 2] and also Chinatsu Kurahara [Uta no Prince-sama, Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters], who was the character designer. My team and I were in charge of designs like weapons, monsters and other details like that. So in design terms, it was mainly Intelligent Systems."
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Theres way more at the link but it's pretty detailed
 

Deleted member 8593

User requested account closure
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Oct 26, 2017
27,176
Who is to blame for the in-game graphics then? It's not that it looks bad, it's just off.... ok, it looks a little bit bad. Hopefully they can work on this for the next game.

Lant_War said:
Nintendo's about to buy Koei Maybe?
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Cow Mengde

Cow Mengde

Member
Oct 26, 2017
12,681
A lot of us suspected Tecmo Koei had a hand in this. I don't know how I feel about this. I love Koei back in the 16 bit days. Their games were deep, unique, and risky; and they were never all that graphically impressive. The company's lack of technical skills still holds true today. The way the game handles many characters on screen just screams Tecmo Koei. They're just standing around or wiggling around is so Dynasty Warriors.

That said, I really like the part where this game is inspired by Romance of the 3 Kingdoms. The name Three Houses definitely evokes some of that. Hey Tecmo Koei, how about a Remastered Legend of Cao Cao on the Switch? That game is practically Romance of the 3 Kingdoms Fire Emblem style!!!
 
Kouriozan

Kouriozan

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Oct 25, 2017
21,050
I'm glad Awakening found success by not trying to appeal to the ephemeral western taste Japanese devs are trying to work for.
Right, most big AAA Japanese devs? Try not to denature your IPs.

Koei Tecmo's influence is so obvious if you played Fire Emblem Warriors, looks like IS liked what they made.
 
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ryushe

ryushe

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Oct 27, 2017
4,813
Man, after seeing how expensive this FE looks and reading stuff like this, it makes me wish Game Freak got help from somewhere too. :(
 
MaitreWakou

MaitreWakou

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May 15, 2018
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At this point a Koei Tecmo newcommer in Smash is a long overdue.
This month alone we're getting Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 (Team Ninja) and Fire Emblem Three Houses. Two major first party games (co)developped by Koei Tecmo studios.
We have the Nintendo musou games (all co developped by Team Ninja, unlike the other musou games)
We have the Fatal Frame serie.
Team Ninja did Other M.
Would be so surprised if Ryu Hayabusa doesn't happen in Smash.
 
UsoEwin

UsoEwin

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Jul 14, 2018
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The fact that they enlisted help from an outside source and still ended up with a game that looks so immensely budget is impressive
 
Thera

Thera

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Feb 28, 2019
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Like with game freak and Pokemon, a lot of people struggle to understand how the change from 3ds to switch can be overwhelming for those devs. People think : with that amount power, the will full berserk. But no, this is not how it works.
 
Strings

Strings

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Oct 27, 2017
31,360
Also, this isn't exactly new for IS btw. They outsource a shiton on all of their titles (Media.Vision, RED, Crafts & Meister, Proge, etc all worked on Awakening and Fates at one point).
 
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MaitreWakou

MaitreWakou

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May 15, 2018
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Strings said:
Eeeeh
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UsoEwin said:
Yeah, it doesn't look even moderately budget
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There seem to be a lot of pre-rendered cutscenes. The game is fully voice acted.
There's a hub in which you can roam around.
It doesn't sound moderately budget to me. The budget doesn't go only in the graphic department :p
Also the game is getting a LOT of marketing ads by Nintendo. This alone cost a lot. Nintendo is putting a lot of money into this game.
 

rawhide

Member
Oct 28, 2017
3,003
They may not have changed their overall philosophy but Awakening had a ton of elements that took international audiences into account--they said they picked Kozaki as the character artist because he was popular overseas, for example.

Honestly, Awakening probably succeeded primarily by being the right game at the right time--it came out during a period where the 3DS audience was demanding meatier games and not getting them, and a lot of people ended up taking the plunge with Awakening who might otherwise have ignored it, purely because there wasn't much else to play. I still remember that one E3 where Reggie accidentally let slip that they were bringing over Awakening and they had to rush out an announcement trailer because it was the one thing they had that year that got any buzz.

If you want to see Intsys trying and utterly failing to appeal to a western audience, look no further than Codename STEAM.
 

Deleted member 33533

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Nov 17, 2017
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rawhide said:
They may not have changed their overall philosophy but Awakening had a ton of elements that took international audiences into account--they said they picked Kozaki as the character artist because he was popular overseas, for example.

Honestly, Awakening probably succeeded primarily by being the right game at the right time--it came out during a period where the 3DS audience was demanding meatier games and not getting them, and a lot of people ended up taking the plunge with Awakening who might otherwise have ignored it, purely because there wasn't much else to play. I still remember that one E3 where Reggie accidentally let slip that they were bringing over Awakening and they had to rush out an announcement trailer because it was the one thing they had that year that got any buzz.

If you want to see Intsys trying and utterly failing to appeal to a western audience, look no further than Codename STEAM.
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Yeah I think Kozaki's art style did a lot. It's very appealing. Plus the 3D cutscenes with that style were excellent and made the game look "bigger" and more epic.

I think for me, someone who never played an FE before Awakening, it wasn't only the art style but the fact that there wasn't permadeath. Plus there was an easy to play demo on the eshop; I saw ads for it... I feel like they actually bothered to promote this one.
 
Strings

Strings

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Oct 27, 2017
31,360
SuperiorTrashTalk said:
Yeah I think Kozaki's art style did a lot. It's very appealing. Plus the 3D cutscenes with that style were excellent and made the game look "bigger" and more epic.

I think for me, someone who never played an FE before Awakening, it wasn't only the art style but the fact that there wasn't permadeath. Plus there was an easy to play demo on the eshop; I saw ads for it... I feel like they actually bothered to promote this one.
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The game before Awakening is the one that introduced a non-permadeath mode, but they didn't bring that one over to the West :/ I think you're definitely onto something with the demo though.
 
Issen

Issen

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Nov 12, 2017
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Does this use the Musou engine? Because it always looked to me like that was the case. It looks a lot like FEW.
 
Comic Obsessed

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One can only hope that in their next entry they all choose a more consistent artstyle that works better for their graphical skills.

Everything else looks great though.
 
KtotheRoc

KtotheRoc

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Oct 27, 2017
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Koei Tecmo sure has been doing a lot of work with Nintendo lately, huh?
 
Strings

Strings

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Oct 27, 2017
31,360
This is an official Nintendo upload. Like, what the hell at the IQ:


disparate said:
I searched for Fates so I could get insight on how Intelligent Systems could have made the one of the worst written games in the medium regardless of language/localization but no such luck.

With regards to this though it doesn't look hot but I'm sure it'll be fine on the handheld itself.
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They hired a very prolific manga writer (who seems to only put out anything passable when he co-writes with his sister).
 
disparate

disparate

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I searched for Fates so I could get insight on how Intelligent Systems could have made the one of the worst written games in the medium regardless of language/localization but no such luck.

With regards to this though it doesn't look hot but I'm sure it'll be fine on the handheld itself.
 
-shadow-

-shadow-

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Oct 25, 2017
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The environment look just fine, the character models... Yeah I think they should've worked on that filter a bit more.
 
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