Localization outfit 8-4, who worked on Fire Emblem: Awakening, had a chance to speak with some of the game’s developers at Intelligent Systems. One of the questions they asked them was why the characters in Awakening have no feet on their 3D models.
The game’s art director, Toshiyuki Kusakihara, explains: “The idea was to add a unique sort of deformation to the characters. As for why it ended up like this… At the start of the project, we weren’t entirely sure how many bones and joints we’d be able to use in each character model.”
Kusakihara elaborates: “As it is now, there’s a joint at the knees, and then there’s nothing below that for the ankles and the feet. This makes it a bit easier to apply animation to models as well. We found out afterward that, with the 3DS, we had more than enough CPU strength available to flesh out the models a bit, add real ankles and so on. We were like "Well, if there’s a next time, maybe there’ll be more ankles…’”
Fire Emblem: Awakening is available in the U.S. and will be released in Europe on April 19th alongside a limited edition 3DS XL bundle.
