Fire Emblem: Awakening's main theme and development goals

- the theme of the game is “love for the characters”
- this is why the marriage system returns
- goal for the game itself was to be the culmination of the entire Fire Emblem series
- Intelligent Systems wanted a new art style
- the studio contacted Yusuke Kozaki to help with this
- Kozaki had played the series, but never beaten an entry
- Kozaki got to include a lot of his personal tastes in the character design
- Kozaki felt like he had to design characters that would appeal to hardcore Fire Emblem fans as well as to new players

“After receiving the job, I went around the fan sites, checked out their illustrations, and analyzed them, like, ‘What does everyone like about Fire Emblem?’ and ‘What’s missing?’ Then I aimed for designs that would be neither too new nor too old.”

- another goal was to make the characters appealing and encourage the “love” theme
- this was accomplished by including rapid-fire lines of voice-acting that would help evoke an atmosphere

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