One of the strangest Fire Emblem games being remade as Fire Emblem Echoes, coming to 3DS on May 19

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Today's Fire Emblem-themed Nintendo Direct was actually full of quite a few surprises. In addition to revealing Fire Emblem Heroes for smart devices, Nintendo also announced a whole bevy of new, proper, fully-fledged Fire Emblem games coming to both 3DS and Nintendo Switch - and the first of which is coming in four months.

Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia is a remake/redesign of the second Fire Emblem game ever made, Fire Emblem Gaiden for the Famicom. It's a bit of a strange one as Gaiden features fully explorable towns, dungeon crawls, free-roam maps, and the ability to customize stats - all of which are brand new concepts for Western fans of the series. It stars dual protagonists Alm and Celica as they navigate a the political rift between two warring countries (and yep, there's totally an amiibo two-pack coming).

Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia is coming to 3DS on May 19, which is a bit surprising considering the Nintendo Switch will have been out for two months by that point. The Switch will at least have Fire Emblem Warriors - the upcoming hack-and-slasher from Koei Tecmo - sometime this fall, but even that game is no longer exclusive, as the Nintendo Direct revealed that New 3DS systems will also get a version of Warriors.

Well, it's not all sour grapes for Switch fans; in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it reveal, Nintendo announced that its new console/handheld hybrid will get a bona fide Fire Emblem game some time in 2018.

Between all these games and the upcoming mobile title, it's really starting to look like the Fiscal Year of Fire Emblem, no?

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David Roberts
David Roberts
David Roberts lives in Everett, WA with his wife and two kids. He once had to sell his full copy of EarthBound (complete with box and guide) to some dude in Austria for rent money. And no, he doesn't have an amiibo 'problem', thank you very much.