FE franchise is 16 games in at this point, including a few remakes with likely more to come. Outside of FE Fates and the Kingdom of Hoshido we've gotten almost nothing but pretty generic Medieval-esq European countries as the sole or predominant focus of every other game. Occasionally a secondary or fringe state or group will have some semblance of a non-European culture, ethnicity or racial makeup like Plegia, Ferox, Sacae, Gallia, Brigid, Duscur or Almyra but these countries/regions are either so far on the fringes of the story, are represented by so exceedingly few characters within the campaign or are so underdeveloped and vague in their execution that it's barely even worth mentioning them. Not mention many are rife with colorism and other problematic elements in their depictions. Overall the worldbuilding and level of depth to the settings and locations in FE are rather quite basic across the board and so those outside elements suffer all the more. Tellius games remain the high point in the series with the most fleshed out nations, cultures and world overall and even that is still quite limited and basic in many regards and not without issues in some of its elements and depictions.
There's really no excuse or reason that FE shouldn't invest far more heavily in depicting much more diverse and richer settings and characters. Greater depth and development overall and exploring other cultures and regions outside Europe would provide a wealth of visual inspiration for the world, characters and locations. Provide tons of inspiration for story elements and conflicts. And introduce lots of new and different options and interpretations of character classes. Something FE Fates really excelled at, well except the story stuff.
This is something that should be done both in the future with new, original titles and even with remakes of past titles. An FE4 remake is being heavily speculated about and I would like nothing more than for Jugdral to go from several non-descript Medieval European nations spanning a whole continent to unique regions with some real cultural and ethnic diversity between them. There is almost nothing to lose by ditching the old undeveloped and rather generic Medieval European makeup of the series and much to gain by infusing the nations and regions with real and tangible elements from around the world. Scattering a bunch of Irish, Norse, Germanic and other names around your map and for your character names isn't world building. And it doesn't make up for the fact that virtually all your characters look the same, dress the same, employ the same classes, and use the same weapons.
Now more than ever Nintendo could do with some real diversity among its games and FE is one series where it could be done so easily and to such great effect thanks to its giant casts and grand stories that span nations and often whole or multiple continents. The series usually ranges from ~65 to ~130 names and portraited characters per game. There's been some 596+ playable characters across the series yet probably not even 1/10 represent anything but rather generic Europeans. To say that's poor would be a vast understatement. These are long ass games that can easily take 30 hours to beat and double that or more to fully complete. Characters, settings and story are a bigger and bigger draw for the franchise. I personally want some real depth and quality to these characters and settings if I'm going to invest so much time in them.
And by all means still include European influences, but actually take inspiration from specific nations, cultures and periods and really build that into their identity and depiction rather than simply using extremely loose naming references to only then present a kingdom and world that is almost wholly generic and unidentifiable. Europe alone is far richer and more diverse than what FE has used thus far. I was initially excited by the 19th century trappings that TH had with its military academy and uniforms, but ultimately that's all they really were and it didn't amount to anything more than a bit of visual flair. That said diversity needs to be tackled in various forms. Race and ethnicity does not need to be tied to their real world culture and nations in order to be present. You can and should have diverse and mixed character within your world regardless, but it is still important to depict and utilize those other regions and cultures as well because a Eurocentric mindset creates a false image of the world and history. There were vast and rich cultures, nations and empires all over the world and all throughout history and it is an immense disservice to not give them their due.
I less interested in actually discussing or debating the supposed validity or probability of this occurring and more interested in hearing what settings, periods, cultures, etc. that others would like to see utilized within the series. The possibilities are virtually endless. Personally I'd love to see more Persian, Arab and North African influences as they at least had very immediate real world connections and interactions with Europe throughout most of history and should be an absolute no brainer to pull into the series. But further afield like China, Mongolia, India, Africa and more would all be great to see used too. If Fates can have Gothic Europe vs Feudal Japan anything goes really.
There's really no excuse or reason that FE shouldn't invest far more heavily in depicting much more diverse and richer settings and characters. Greater depth and development overall and exploring other cultures and regions outside Europe would provide a wealth of visual inspiration for the world, characters and locations. Provide tons of inspiration for story elements and conflicts. And introduce lots of new and different options and interpretations of character classes. Something FE Fates really excelled at, well except the story stuff.
This is something that should be done both in the future with new, original titles and even with remakes of past titles. An FE4 remake is being heavily speculated about and I would like nothing more than for Jugdral to go from several non-descript Medieval European nations spanning a whole continent to unique regions with some real cultural and ethnic diversity between them. There is almost nothing to lose by ditching the old undeveloped and rather generic Medieval European makeup of the series and much to gain by infusing the nations and regions with real and tangible elements from around the world. Scattering a bunch of Irish, Norse, Germanic and other names around your map and for your character names isn't world building. And it doesn't make up for the fact that virtually all your characters look the same, dress the same, employ the same classes, and use the same weapons.
Now more than ever Nintendo could do with some real diversity among its games and FE is one series where it could be done so easily and to such great effect thanks to its giant casts and grand stories that span nations and often whole or multiple continents. The series usually ranges from ~65 to ~130 names and portraited characters per game. There's been some 596+ playable characters across the series yet probably not even 1/10 represent anything but rather generic Europeans. To say that's poor would be a vast understatement. These are long ass games that can easily take 30 hours to beat and double that or more to fully complete. Characters, settings and story are a bigger and bigger draw for the franchise. I personally want some real depth and quality to these characters and settings if I'm going to invest so much time in them.
And by all means still include European influences, but actually take inspiration from specific nations, cultures and periods and really build that into their identity and depiction rather than simply using extremely loose naming references to only then present a kingdom and world that is almost wholly generic and unidentifiable. Europe alone is far richer and more diverse than what FE has used thus far. I was initially excited by the 19th century trappings that TH had with its military academy and uniforms, but ultimately that's all they really were and it didn't amount to anything more than a bit of visual flair. That said diversity needs to be tackled in various forms. Race and ethnicity does not need to be tied to their real world culture and nations in order to be present. You can and should have diverse and mixed character within your world regardless, but it is still important to depict and utilize those other regions and cultures as well because a Eurocentric mindset creates a false image of the world and history. There were vast and rich cultures, nations and empires all over the world and all throughout history and it is an immense disservice to not give them their due.
I less interested in actually discussing or debating the supposed validity or probability of this occurring and more interested in hearing what settings, periods, cultures, etc. that others would like to see utilized within the series. The possibilities are virtually endless. Personally I'd love to see more Persian, Arab and North African influences as they at least had very immediate real world connections and interactions with Europe throughout most of history and should be an absolute no brainer to pull into the series. But further afield like China, Mongolia, India, Africa and more would all be great to see used too. If Fates can have Gothic Europe vs Feudal Japan anything goes really.
