By now, no one found it surprising that GAMENOVA would hide things inside its games. If anything, Easter eggs and hidden content had already become an essential part of GAMENOVA's identity.
The moment Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade was released; strategy groups began springing up spontaneously all over the world.
Steve suddenly recalled the character Geese, whom he had encountered several times, and immediately realized something.
"I tried talking to him twice, but nothing seemed to happen. Later, since I wanted to progress through the game as quickly as possible, I just ignored him."
As a game reviewer, Steve and his colleagues had to experience the main content of a game as quickly as possible and write their review. Things like hidden secrets and Easter eggs usually had to wait until the following issue before they could be covered in detail.
"Just getting to Chapter 12 took me two full days and nights."
Thinking back on the past two days, Steve couldn't help shuddering.
"I still dream about Bern's armored knights one-shotting a full health Roy with a single lance."
The experience of playing Fire Emblem was unquestionably one of pain mixed with joy. Seeing Steve looking as though he had developed PTSD, Ethan chuckled.
"Actually, if you don't insist on keeping everyone alive, the game isn't nearly that difficult."
Fire Emblem's difficulty system was rather unique. It varied from player to player and never had a fixed setting.
Once you stopped obsessing over saving everyone and instead treated it as a campaign where victory was all that mattered, regardless of the cost, it actually became a fairly relaxing and enjoyable strategy game.
"Uh..."
Listening to Ethan's outrageous statement, Steve genuinely didn't know how to respond.
"You wrote unique death quotes for every single character and even played funeral music when they died. How am I supposed to just watch them perish without feeling guilty?"
It was true that almost every chapter introduced new playable characters. Many of them had excellent stats and impressive growth rates.
Even so, Steve still wanted to avoid casualties whenever possible. It had become something of an obsession.
"I keep telling myself that this chapter has to be played perfectly. The more determined I am, the harder it is to accept any mistake. So I end up reloading over and over again."
Steve rubbed his aching forehead.
"But you're right, Ethan. If I hadn't been so obsessed with keeping everyone alive, I probably would've finished the game by now."
He was the one imposing those restrictions on himself.
"Alright then. So, what you're saying is that there are still a lot of hidden recruitable characters in the game?"
"That's right. Though I believe attentive players who've carefully read the dialogue have probably already discovered most of them."
Unlike the hidden Easter eggs in many other games, the recruitable characters in this game weren't deliberately concealed. On the contrary, the game practically bombarded players with hints, almost afraid they might miss them.
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What he had truly hidden… was the game's mechanics.
"Although the game hasn't been out for long, I believe observant players have probably noticed that there's another system in the game called Support..."
Hidetaka Miyazaki had completely lost track of how many times he had deleted his save and started over.
Fire Emblem was truly a game overflowing with malice. Some mistakes wouldn't reveal themselves until much later, when they suddenly exploded into unbearable consequences.
"So that's why Marcus is so hard to level up..."
Miyazaki slammed his fist against the floor.
During his previous playthrough, he had treated Marcus as the core of his army, funneling as much experience as possible into him. Yet Marcus required an unusually large amount of experience to level up, and every level-up only rewarded him with a pitiful increase of one point of HP.
At first, Miyazaki had assumed that was simply because Marcus was an exceptionally powerful character. Naturally, someone that strong should be harder to raise, but as the game progressed, later recruits like Dieck and Rutger also proved to be extremely powerful.
Yet leveling them wasn't nearly as difficult. Moreover, they consistently gained astonishing stat increases whenever they leveled up. Even Alan, who had accompanied him from the very beginning, possessed growth potential that far surpassed Marcus's.
Without exaggeration, Marcus was only truly impressive during the first three chapters, and the farther the game progressed, the weaker he became. Thus, with his entire strategy of concentrating resources on Marcus completely falling apart, Miyazaki had no choice but to abandon his current save and start over from scratch.
Rather than dragging along a group of allies whose stats could no longer keep up with the increasing difficulty, it was simply better to restart while he hadn't progressed too far.
"Marcus, this time you'll just stay in the back."
Miyazaki directly assigned Marcus to remain behind alongside Roy.
Meanwhile, the two cavaliers, Alan and Lance, together with the archer Wolt, became his primary damage dealers. This time, he played far more cautiously.
"Huh? There's another option?"
After finally defeating all the enemies ahead and preparing to move Roy's group forward, he suddenly noticed a new command had appeared in Roy's menu.
Talk.
He had never seen that option before.
"The only person I can talk to is Marcus? Why?"
Miyazaki blinked in confusion. Throughout this playthrough, Roy, Marcus, and Bors had always moved together. If this could trigger some new content, there was no reason Marcus should be selectable while Bors wasn't.
Still, since the option was there, he naturally had to see what it did.
Marcus: "No, no, no!"
Roy: "What's wrong, Marcus?"
Marcus: "The way young people fight these days simply won't do! Well, not all of them, but it's getting worse and worse!"
Marcus: "If someone doesn't straighten them out soon…"
Roy: "Really? Isn't everyone already fighting as hard as they can?"
Marcus: "No, Lord Roy, you're far too lenient! I need to go teach them properly myself."
Roy: "Do you really have to do it personally? You're already getting on in years...."
Marcus: "What did you say?!" (The screen shakes.)
Marcus: "Even if I am old, I still won't lose to those youngsters!"
Roy: "Y-Yes... but you are really getting older. You should take better care of yourself."
Marcus: "Yes. Thank you for your concern."
Marcus (thinking): "Lord Roy is truly too kind. Compared to him, those youngsters are completely hopeless."
Marcus: "If I don't work even harder to assist Lord Roy..."
Miyazaki carefully read through the entire conversation. He still didn't quite understand its purpose.
Marcus's role as Roy's dependable veteran caretaker had already been well established in the story. So why had the developers inserted an extra conversation solely to deepen their relationship?
Just as he pressed the A button to finish the dialogue, a blue notification box suddenly appeared on the screen.
[Support Level Increased]
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