Official artwork: Nintendo / Intelligent Systems, shared by @VideoArtGame and @memorycardfiles.
In Fire Emblem Awakening, you command an army in turn-based battles. Characters who fight together and interact grow closer; those relationships improve their co-operative abilities in combat. Some relationships can also develop into marriage.
Marriage had first appeared in the series in Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu, released in Japan in May 1996. Pairings affected the abilities of the characters’ children. For Awakening, producer Hitoshi Yamagami wanted that system back, while director Genki Yokota saw it as part of a broader aim: making players love their soldiers as characters.
Positioning your units is one part of Awakening’s battles; their bonds also affect co-operative abilities. Screenshot: Nintendo / Intelligent Systems, from Nintendo’s game page.
The confessions needed illustrations and voices
In an Iwata Asks interview published by Nintendo, Yokota recalled that the idea was straightforward, but expanding the possible pairings created a scheduling problem. Kouhei Maeda explained how the team kept adding to the plan: special marriage illustrations, then voiced declarations of love. Character designer Yusuke Kozaki remembered an even more ambitious suggestion from Toshiyuki Kusakihara: showing every couple kissing. The team pushed back on that one.
Character designer Yusuke Kozaki also explains that he looked through fan sites and fan illustrations to understand what people liked about Fire Emblem. His aim was a cast that wouldn’t feel either completely unfamiliar or stuck in the past.
