Happy Anniversary, Summoners!

The Fire Emblem Heroes game was released one year ago today, and to celebrate the anniversary, some of the Fire Emblem Heroes team members in the Treehouse got together to reflect on the first year since the game launched. Read on to see what they had to say!

Kris: It’s amazing how much Fire Emblem Heroes has evolved since launch. Many of us on the team play the game heavily outside of work as well, so each time a new option like Inherit Skill or the Weapon Refinery is added, we’re eager to play it on our own devices with our own teams.

But first, we’ve got to localize the content and get it out there, and on the loc side of things, there are aspects of the project that haven’t changed—mainly the amount of research involved. It’s a lot of fun digging into our archives for past games. The Heroes come from every main-series title, so we’ve put together a script database of all the games, including those not released in North America, to help us keep everything aligned.

The Treehouse “Fire Emblem Shrine” is not just for decoration. It’s part of our research!

Matthew: Even the early Famicom games like Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light have scripts that were quite lengthy for the time, so it really took a lot of work to get that all organized into something we could use as a reference. I mean, there are 15 games in the main Fire Emblem series alone!

Kris: It was worth the effort, though. The database allows us to research basic things, like item names or the way a character laughs, as well as deeper references. Most Heroes reference conversations from whatever game they’re from, whether word for word or just in passing.

Frederick does his best to serve his liege…

…and tries to help the Order, too. Sort of.

Kris: When we come across these lines, sometimes they have to be tweaked for their new context, both in Japanese and in English. A line that was once used angrily in battle might now be recast for general conversation. A critical-attack line might now be the voice used when you tap a Hero during battle. Very often, a line originally directed to a different character might now be directed to you, the Summoner. It’s an interesting balance of keeping the link to the source material while fitting a new context and not confusing any players who are new to the series. I get excited when people post online about a reference they got, like the various bonus audio lines for the first round of Choose Your Legends characters.

Matthew: Yeah, it’s always great to see when people pick up on those references. As for me, while I’ve played every game in the Fire Emblem series, Genealogy of the Holy War is still my favorite. I loved how complex the world was in that game, and, of course, that complexity brought about some great drama. When we were asked to work on localizing those characters for Fire Emblem Heroes, I was honored to help out. Sigurd is a very unique lord and Arvis is a very unique villain in the Fire Emblem series. It was important for Christian and I to do their characters justice through the dialog and voice.

Sigurd professing his love to Deirdre in the Super Famicom original game.



Here they reference events from the original game in Fire Emblem Heroes.



Christian: Genealogy of the Holy War originally came out for the Super Famicom, and it was never localized into English. Given how great that game’s characters are, figuring out how to properly render their stories in English was both a challenge and an opportunity. I wanted to get things just right.

I put a lot of thought into how to portray their speech in a style that could successfully bring across the 1990s dark-fantasy style of the original writing while preserving the complexity of the storytelling and characterization for the modern era. In Fire Emblem Heroes, there’s not much dialogue for each character, but it usually cuts to the bone of what makes that character special—and there’s a lot of info that you need to understand to get it right. Matt’s insight was invaluable there.

Matthew: In one of my main teams, Sigurd and Deirdre are together and share an S rank bond. (It’s canon after all, right?) Genealogy wasn’t the first game to give bonuses to characters when they were near someone dear to them, but it expanded the concept greatly and even introduced things famous to the series, like the weapon triangle and skills! There is a lot I want to say, but…since many players have yet to experience the game, I won’t spoil anything about the story here. Let’s just say that it’s much easier to increase the bond between Seliph and Julia in Fire Emblem Heroes than it was in the original game.

(By the way, I’m definitely using these characters for the Illusory Dungeon—that’s a rhythm-based dungeon in which you tap on the screen to attack enemies. And it releases in Fire Emblem Heroes later this month!)

Christian: One thing that has made me very happy is the positive response to these characters—both from fans who played the original Super Famicom game, as well as those who never encountered these characters before they appeared in Fire Emblem Heroes but now consider them to be invaluable parts of their teams. Just a year ago, a lot of Fire Emblem players in the West had no idea who Arden was!

Here, in Genealogy of the Holy War, Arden is about to find a special ring!

That same ring gives Arden a unique skill in Fire Emblem Heroes as well!

Tim: While I appreciate the history of the older games like Genealogy of the Holy War, the greatest joy I’ve experienced in playing Fire Emblem Heroes during its first year has been the evolution of my beloved #TeamLucina. Lucina was, luckily enough, one of my first summons when the game launched. Since then I’ve been blessed with summoning Special Hero Spring Lucina, obtaining a handful of masked Lucinas (or “Marths”) from the Tempest Trials (thusly merged into a single +4), and the Lucina I got as my Choose Your Legends free Hero.

Matthew: That’s two blues and two reds. Is that team actually any good?

Tim: Imbalanced as #TeamLucina may seem, it’s a surprisingly solid squad—and it all came down to masked Lucina, who arrived upon my shores with naught but Falchion to her name.

Number 6 in my list, but number 1 in my heart.

Kris: We’ve seen a lot of fans online create their own #Team based on a character, artist, or voice actor. Masked Lucina is a great blank slate to work with, too. What did you do with yours?

Tim: I’ve been able to utilize features such as Inherit Skill and Sacred Seals to turn her into the team medic, and a rather efficient one at that. First, I used Inherit Skill to give her Reciprocal Aid, Renewal, and Breath of Life; eventually she earned the Breath of Life Sacred Seal, so whenever she swings her mighty Falchion, adjacent allies receive a whopping 14 HP. Moreover, she’s sitting pretty at 45 HP, meaning she can heal practically any ally to full with Reciprocal Aid. And just a few turns later, or at the start of the next round in the case of a Tempest Trial, she’ll earn 20 HP back thanks to Renewal and Falchion.

Christian: What about her A Skill and Special Skill?

Tim: I gave her Death Blow and Glimmer to further bolster her already staggering attack power of 52.

Matt: You monster.

My one regret is missing the 5 ★ version from the very first Tempest Trial.

Tim: Throw Ally Support into the mix, and #TeamLucina is truly a force to be reckoned with. I pity the poor soul who encounters it in the Arena.

Kris: In the meantime, I’ll just be over here working on my +10 Frederick. Leveling the duplicates to merge should go quick thanks to the Special Training maps releasing later this month, since they let you train your units based on their type for an easier way to earn Exp and SP.

That’s all for this time, but from all of us on the Fire Emblem Heroes team here in the Treehouse, we hope you all continue to enjoy the game!

Good luck, Summoners!

—Kris C., Matthew N., Christian N., Tim M.