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Originally published in 2010, the Iwata Asks interview on FE12 was recently fully translated and brought to us in english. You can find it here if you haven't read it already.

I personally found it a very interesting read. And I was wondering what my fellow FEFers thought of some of the aspects discussed. Especially the nature of Fire Emblem's essence and the aspect of permanent death and the then new Casual Mode. And I thought it was sort of fun to see these developers talk about their own experiences with the series and permanent death.
So what do you think about the interview? Does it reflect things that you thought about FE12 or the series on the whole? What do you think about permanent death and casual mode? Do you agree with the directions that they talk about in regards to how New Mystery was developed?

I won't say much here, because I want to discuss too. Give me your thoughts.

I believe I read this interview some time back, as well as one concerning Radiant Dawn more specifically, but of the same nature.

First of all, I have to get it off my chest that I spit on casual mode. As far as I'm concerned, it's something that should never exist. One of the core components of Fire Emblem, which I would definitely consider to be part of its essence, or its former essence, rather, is the fact that deaths are permanent. And wouldn't you know, the idea to change this came from Nintendo itself, not the makers of Fire Emblem. Frankly, it makes me really wonder if they know what sort of person enjoys the games. What they refer to as "super-stoics" (By the way: choice of words? 'Stoic'? Really? It's rather an insult to an entire branch of ancient philosophy.) are how almost everyone who plays the game plays, the exception being extremely veteran players who are obsessed almost entirely with the technical and have zero attachment to characters objectively. They were basically brow-beaten into inserting it and "seeing" it as a valid thing to incorporate now. Not buying it. They've had to make concessions. I smell meddling from higher ups in what they're allowed to say on the matter, to be honest. And it smells like s**t. Which is what I measure the existence of casual mode to be.

If you need to be eased into playing Fire Emblem, play it on Easy Mode and work your way up. Don't just take away one of the most defining features of what makes the series what it is and turn it into something optional.

It's unsurprising, though, I suppose, that it came into existence first in games featuring a cast that largely has very little personification in comparison with that in other titles which would make it harder to care about whether they die for a new player, making it hypothetically harder to get into that "super-stoic" frame of mind. For a game that wasn't even exported abroad.

To be fair, however, whenever I've read these sorts of interviews I've largely been unimpressed by the people being interviewed, happy as I am that they exist.

I still love the series and CANNOT wait for FE13, but Fire Emblem is dead (figuratively speaking, of course). And the Casual/Classic split killed it.

Is this elitist of me? Perhaps, but I've been invested in the series for a long enough time with enough intensity that I don't particularly mind such a label with regards to Fire Emblem.

And that's why this thread was originally going to be exclusively about Casual Mode.

The trend of babying players and holding their hands as they go into the game is something that pops up a lot in modern games, from hour long tutorials that lead your around a world map by the nose, to easier than easy modes. It's a trend that I really dislike, since it assumes that most players might lose attention or become discouraged if you don't feed them rules and instant gratification from the get-go, which creates that pattern by itself.

I found their discussion on the matter of Casual Mode to be the most interesting part of the whole affair. That they had been fighting to keep perma-death as far back as FE4's development, and what they cited as their reasons to keep it in, and eventually create Casual Mode. They even talk about new people getting into the game and the idea of resetting, which is something that I've never heard any designer admit to, for obvious reasons. But I do agree with FD, it's hard not to think about the team being brow beaten into it by highers-up when reading the thing. And people who do reset the game and invest time and resources into a character is anything but "Stoic." Especially when they start talking about how if a character dies during casual mode, the fact that you won't have them for the rest of the chapter in question offers the "pleasant feeling of tension." Well, maybe a little... but it's definitely not as tense when you know it's temporary!

To speak from my own experience, in my first ever run of a Fire Emblem Game, I let two characters die. The thought of resetting the game didn't occur to me until subsequent playthroughs, and now I do it all the time. But I know many people who have been afraid to pick up FE because the concept of permanent death scares them. However, I ALSO know people who I have gotten into FE after telling them "You know, you could just reset and play the chapter over," and then they go "Huh, so you can..." It's interesting that resetting is something that doesn't occur to everyone when they play FE for the first time. Is it the fact that permanent death is one of FE's most marketed features? Maybe. Marketing and getting people to buy the game is the objective at the end of the day. But how would one market a game to new players that are afraid of one of the fundamental aspects of the whole series, even if it's not as huge a deal as it might seem at first? You can't say in your commercials "You can reset the game if a person dies!" That's bringing in something from the metagame and devaluing the concept slightly by saying it out loud.

But that's just it. Permanent Death is a part of FE, and while classic mode is still offered, the existence of a casual mode cheapens it, even if the player in question doesn't ever touch it. They can't say "When a character dies, they die forever!" on the back of the box anymore, because now it is optional. And keeping your characters alive has always been a huge part of strategy when playing FE. It's a large part of the game's tension and difficulty. Devaluing death takes an emphasis away from that in all aspects of the game.

I understand why the mode exists, but I don't like it at all. It just comes across as giving in and trading a piece of the series' soul for attracting new players. I have to wonder how well FE12 sold and how many copies went to new players.

After reading this interview, I thought about more than just Casual Mode when they were talking about remaking Mystery as its own game and a game with the intention of bringing in new players. I think that shows up in other areas as well. I'm still intensely curious about the game and its execution, and now I have more incentive to finish FE3 before the fan translation of FE12 is done.

Why do new players need casual mode to be introduced to the series, though, is one of my gripes.

Everyone was new to the series at some point and came to be a fan of it for what it is. For every person who picked up a Fire Emblem game for the first time before this Casual Mode was a thing, they were just as new as people just coming on board now. This dichotomy that Casual mode is for new players and Classic is for veterans is a false dichotomy. Tiki nailed it for me when she said the very existence of the mode cheapens the original formula, even if it's not required.

On a more "meta" level, I suppose (another word I hate but that has a lot of currency) the insistence of Nintendo in seeing Casual mode introduced as a means to attract potential new customers for the series can be interpreted as a response to the economy and how technology has impacted the gaming industry in general. $1 apps and games like Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja have completely changed the industry and put companies like Nintendo in a bit of a bind they wouldn't have anticipated. Casual gaming is on the rise and more and more people that don't necessarily identify as "gamers" are being exposed in some part to app games.

It's not that people don't want new people to join the fanbase. I'd hope that people like to welcome newcomers into the series that they love and watch as they learn it (In an ideal world, anywho, we all know that there are less welcoming people out there in all fandoms). There actually was a point in FE's history where a game in the series was very obviously designed to pull in new players. Many new players. Entire continents of new players. I of course refer to FE7.

Something I tend to wonder about now and then is if Lyn would have existed at all if FE7 had stayed in Japan. Or if, at least, Lyn's Story would have existed as it is. It is largely a tutorial to ease new players into the game. FE7 was the firt FE for many western players, obviously, and it did a decent job of letting them ease into the series. I ask why this couldn't have been done again. I mean, they sort of do, with the prologue of FE12. I think you can attract new players to FE without having to use Casual mode. Heck, they did. Though I wonder how FE7 did in Japan...

It's not even like anyone who has disapproved of casual mode in here is swearing off of FE. And no one is looking down on people who want to play casually or find an entry into the series. And fans are allowed to talk about subjects and trends in their favored series without having to agree with everything or disagree with everything. Just like you are allowed to talk about how you don't think casual mode is that big a deal. You shouldn't be branded an elitist for wanting to talk about something or for not being on board with a change. If we were outright attacking new players, that would be excessive, but I don't see that here.

For me, it is most definitely not a deal-breaker, as I will not use Casual Mode. I also won't take to the streets because of the mode's existence. However I do think that being able to switch permanent death on and off cheapens the whole thing. I will stand by that. If new players want to play the game without fear of death, that is their choice. But as a veteran, the fact that there is a choice at all regarding if death is permanent or not means that the deaths of characters don't have the impact that they should. Since they don't HAVE to be gone forever. It's an exception instead of the rule, and that doesn't sit well with me. Especially since they say in the interview that the essential pleasant feeling of tension and emphasis on the value of life will be retained in casual mode, whereas I can't get my head around how that is true if the player knows fully well that death won't have nearly as heavy consequences as it would be were it permanent. Death being a big deal makes survival all the more valuable, and it causes the player to get invested in the game and their characters to make it happen.
But that does not mean I look down on potential newcomers or stop being a fan myself. Nor does it mean that while I actually play through FE12 or 13 I'll be going THE GAME IS RUINED BECAUSE THIS DEATH THAT JUST HAPPENED HAS NO MEANING every time I reset the game after someone dies in classic mode. I just wanted to know where people stood on this, and I knew there would be divisions.

I simultaneously like and dislike the Casual mode. I do agree that it cheapens one of the game's selling points, but that isn't the only selling point. There are several games I've played where I desperately wished for a "Casual mode" because I wanted to experience the story, but it was just too hard to finish without letting something bad happen.

This is all reminding me about the discussion of Mass Effect 3's three different modes: Combat, Story, and Normal. Casual mode in FE is like Story mode in ME3; less importance is put on combat and tactics, so you can enjoy the story without fear of losing any of the characters.

Of course, I'm offended that there's an "on-off" button for permanent character death now, but I totally get that some people just want the story without any stress. As long as Casual mode is something you pick beforehand - and continues throughout the entire game - and isn't just one of the settings, then I'm not gonna rage against anything.

"3. Casual mode was NOT made as a tutorial. Why... the ******** is that being thought. If you think that, you didn't read the article, plain and simple. Casual mode was made to reach out to new players who wouldn't have wanted to play the game otherwise."

It's not.. about easing new players into FE. It's about getting other people actually interested in PLAYING it, before they can even start to get eased in.

Unless somebody is willing to go so far as to say that games shouldn't strive to adapt to the interests of their players and potential players, coming to a compromise at times when these interests conflict and bringing about something that everybody can indulge in, then I see no reason why anybody should have a problem with the existence of casual mode. Dislike it all you want, nobody is making you play it. But there's no reason to think the mode's existence is bad.