Fire Emblem: Three Houses Director, Toshiyuki Kusakihara, doesn’t know the reasons behind the series’ western success. In a recent Gamespot interview about why the series is so popular, Kusakihara said:
“I actually don’t know why it’s been so accepted by so many people all over the world.”
As mentioned in the interview, the Fire Emblem series has been popular in Japan since the beginning, in 1990. But only in 2013 with the launch of Fire Emblem Awakening released on 3Ds, the series reached worldwide recognition. This is probably due to the massive success of the Nintendo handheld console. However, Kusakihara couldn’t identify a precise reason behind the sudden Fire Emblem popularity in the west.
“We don’t have the confidence to say: ‘Oh! As long as we keep doing this thing, then the game will be popular!’ There’s nothing like that.”
“When we develop the game, we just strive to make it something beyond what people can imagine. That might help in making it popular.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdkyi7Myg-c
Where the Inspiration Comes From
The director also shared where they got the inspiration to include an academy component to Three Houses:
“Genealogy Of The Holy War was what we directly drew inspiration from.”
Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War is a 1996 tactical role-playing game for Nintendo’s Super Famicon. Never translated in English, it’s the fourth Fire Emblem and the second released on Super Famicon.
“In this game, you have an Officer’s Academy where there are best friends who really develop their relationships there, and the story was centered around them. So [Three Houses] was kind of an attempt to create that kind of setting in more detail.”
In Three Houses, it’s possible to interact with the professors, students, and personnel of the academy. Cultivating personal relationships, training skills, and completing side activities will have a significant impact on our performances on the battlefield.
