
Recently, I have just obtained this gem.
Fire Emblem Awakening, one of the most incredible and most amazing game I've ever played on a handheld.
If you ever read my previous blogs here you would know in this 2011 piece I said this.
So Thus far the games I've bought that have been released for the year 2011 are right here, so in deciding what game deserves this title I must first do this.
Get Rid of Handheld Games. I'm sorry, I like Handheld Games, but as I see it none of them can stand up to the console games so they're immediately out of the picture....
...I'm sure I downloaded some titles for 2011 like Fancy Pants and Street Fighter III, I don't want to list them all down nor both firing up my game systems or Download clients just to list them, If I liked it enough It would already be listed, but other than that just like handheld games they should be taken off unless otherwise. (this rule can be applied to Handhelds too, if the time comes where a Handheld game becomes better than most Console games it will be allowed, until then we go on.)
and it appears that time has come.
Fire Emblem Awakening has truely surpassed my expectations and is a game truely deserving a Game of the Year title...but it's too early to really say that, I mean it's March.
But that's not what this Blog is about, oh no no no. This Blog is about something my friend laid down on me the other day.
My friend told me that the reason why the 3DS had an early price drop wasn't because of lagging sales.
No, it's was actually a business plan set by themselves to sell more units and of course it worked. What were his reasons?
The Ambassador Program.
We all thought it was a nice gesture from Nintendo, Good PR if you will. A nice compensation for buying a 3DS for full price rather than waiting, but here's the thing. My Friend says this was done so Nintendo could sell units, NES and GBA games on your 3DS? The eShop doesn't have those! and they even announced that stuff BEFORE the actual price drop and it's being rumored that the GBA games will be Ambassador ONLY. Holy crap System Seller right?
a Win Win. Nintendo gets our money and we get GBA games.
Now I'm going to add a little bit more flair here to my friend's myth.
Look at the Titles Nintendo selected...
It may seem obvious with games like Mario, Zelda and Metroid...but why Yoshi and Yoshi's Island? Why F-Zero? and More Importantly, Why Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones?
I know it's VG Charts, but it's the only source I have to make a point. This game sold a little under 89,000 units. Not particularly bad, but it's nowhere near as popular as some would say next to Mario or Zelda and I don't think anyone during that time cared for Fire Emblem outside of Smash Bros. Although it was because of interest in the characters in Melee that got them stateside, but my point is that, Fire Emblem isn't that popular of a game. So it came to me and my friend's surprise that it was part of the ambassador program.
Here's what I think.
If you've played Sacred Stones, you would know it's pretty different from the rest of the Fire Emblem games, I'm not entirely sure since I didn't play it much, but from my friend who played the heck out of it when it was new on the GBA, It has this Map System to where you can go out and train without progressing the story and you can recruit new members by talking to certain enemies.
Some of these gameplay elements in Sacred Stones are not present in the other Fire Emblem games, like Path of Radiance (according to my friend here anyway.) all except for ONE GAME.
I bet you can guess what it is. Ya, that's right.
It's Fire Emblem Awakening.
Now if you take the Myth that Nintendo "PLANNED" the 3DS Price Cut and the Ambassador games, you might say that Nintendo adding Fire Emblem The Sacred Stones to the list was to generate hype for the Next Fire Emblem game which at the time wasn't announced yet, but when it was the people in the ambassador program have had time to actually play Fire Emblem The Sacred Stones and gotten used to the game play so when they get Awakening they would feel right at home. Not to mention this would be their 2nd Fire Emblem game and they would probably go tell others about the game series and getting people into the series as well and they in turn may actually get the other games as well. While I'm not entirely sure how well Fire Emblem Awakening has sold, it seems to have trouble keeping stock somewhere. So there are people buying this game.
If Fire Emblem Awakening sells past 1 million then it would be the Most Popular Fire Emblem to date. Would this also mean that Nintendo's plan to establish the franchise was a success using Sacred Stones and Awakening to do it?
A New Yoshi game was announced not too long ago...there are 2 Yoshi games on the Ambassador Program...
F-Zero is on the Amabassador Program and the Famicom 30th Anniversary program...
Does this mean we're going to see a New F-Zero soon? Is Nintendo hoping to strike the same success of Fire Emblem with Yoshi?
Just some food for thought.
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