It’s been the best part of ten years since we’ve heard anything from Shouzou Kaga, creator of the Fire Emblem series, but it looks as though he’s back and ready to make games once more.
His last contribution to the long-running series was the fiendishly difficult Fire Emblem: Thracia 776, released in 1999. Thracia 776 introduced a number of mechanics that have since become staples of the series, including the dreaded Fog of War. After the game’s release, Kaga moved on to form his own company and release two strategy RPGs of his own. The similarity of the first of these, TearRing Saga, to other Fire Emblem games prompted Nintendo to sue their publisher. Nintendo won a settlement in 2005, the same year the second strategy RPG was released, Berwick Saga, and Kaga has not been credited in anything since.
“This might be a bit sudden,” reads a translated entry of his blog, “but I decided to start making a doujin game with some friends, hahaha.
We’ll use the recently released doujin soft SRPG Studio (© SapphireSoft), and once it’s done we’ll distribute the game for free.
In order to increase the game’s quality, we’re looking for runtime graphic contributions we could use for free: unit sprites, battle animations, effects, map tiles, parts, background music, sound effects, background images, etc. Those who have made or obtained (with permission from the original author) such resources, please give us a hand.”
SRPG Studio currently has no English translation, but with this announcement shedding light on its existence, we can at least start to hope for an English release. Either way, this is a big win for Fire Emblem fans, who consider Genealogy of the Holy War and Thracia 776 to be two of the franchise’s best releases. This announcement is also the latest in a spate of recent news about reboots and spiritual successors, and most likely won’t be the last we hear of the trend.
