At one point, Nintendo was working on a new Fire Emblem game for the N64. Only a little information about the project was let out before its cancellation.
Now that the Making of Fire Emblem book is out in Japan, fresh details about Fire Emblem 64’s development have emerged. You can find them rounded up below, along with concept art images. All translations come courtesy of Serenes Forest and Reddit’s Microwaveit.
– The foundations of Fire Emblem 64 were used to develop Binding Blade for the GBA
– Fire Emblem 64 was titled “Maiden of Darkness”
– This was also the working title of Binding Blade when it was first unveiled
– Not much was carried over between Fire Emblem 64 and Binding Blade according to an interview with the developers
– In the middle of production for the N64 version of Maiden of Darkness, due to various structural changes, game planning basically had to start over from the beginning
– Roy remained the same
– Almost everything else about the game changed, including story and (almost) all other characters
– Since the target audience for the game became older, they had to recreate their protagonist to appeal to both kids and adults
– Karel was the only character from Maiden of Darkness to get carried over into Blinding Blade
– A character named Idoun also existed in both games, but only the name is consistent
– The appearance, personality, and role in-game are all different
– Concept artwork and a screenshot of Maiden of Darkness shown during Space World 2000 are in this post
– Images show an unnamed male called Taki
– Raigh, Ephraim, Eliwood (Ephraim’s father), Aron, Bors and Owain dialogue is included in the book
– Eliwood, Raigh and Bors are names of characters from Binding Blade, although it’s unclear if they’re the same characters
– Ephraim shares his name with one of the Lords of The Sacred Stones
– Owain was later used as Eudes’s English name in Awakening
– It’s likely they’re different characters, but their names were simply reused
– One of the earliest concept artworks for Roy had his name labelled “Ike”
– Ike was originally known as “Paris”
– This name was later used for his descendant in Awakening (Priam in the English version)
Bilder: