I've basically finished the first project I was working on and I've had two good suggestions as next-step exercises from Jim and Josh. However I don't want to put my design work up just yet until I've caught up with the case studies that led to it. i.e. I want to keep it in context.
Let's see if I can get caught up in one fell swoop.
Rightyho.
This was my next case study:
Fire Emblem: Awakening
Released (EU): 2012
Platform: Nintendo 3DS
Genre: Tactical role-playing
Publisher: Nintendo
Fire Emblem, is one of the most character enriched game series I've ever personally come across. This is why I chose this as a case study. It is renown for its generous and deep cast of characters. There is always a character to both like and hate for various reasons, whether it is based on their skills or their personality.
Fire Emblem: Awakening is perhaps the best example for character depth and engagement. There is an incredible amount of character with whom you can build a relationship through your avatar, or build supports and relationships among themselves. Every character has their own unique quirk, something that individualizes the character and yet is identifiable to a wide variety of players for the most part.
Obviously, some people aren't so concerned with that - however in this installment of the series in particular building support and relationships is integral to optimal game-play. The point here is that the player is encouraged to be able to relate to at least some of these characters for a reason. Every character has their strengths and weakness for each environment in which you inevitably battle. So not only is it implicit for game-play, characters have an affect and are affected by the game/play-space.
Take Kellam for an example. He's a great character in my opinion, mainly for the ridiculous irony in that he is almost always overlooked by people, often doing chores and tasks that the others assume is the work of a poltergeist! He's a big guy, in a big suit of armour, yet has an assuming personality that leads to him seeming invisible to others.
He's a knight, a pretty heavy-set class, great defense, good attack and appalling movement range. Imagine Kellam on this map:
His already poor movement is restricted even more by the sand! This mechanic enhances how believable the world is through the interaction of the characters. The relevance of what I said about liking this character/ relating to this character so much is that I'd feel inclined to use him as a unit, even on a battlefield as hindering as this. As such, I have to suffer the penalties of the terrain on which he struggles. In my opinion, this is an excellent example of characters and play spaces working like a well-oiled machine.
Where does culture come into this?
Well, two places, both in the realm of that rich cast of characters:
i) Most of the characters seem to have a westernized appearance and attitude, one of the reasons that the series as a whole is said to have been easily translated across regions. The fact that it is mostly text-based makes localizing character dialogues a lot easier at any rate. While the art style in inherently manga/anime, the environments and customs of a lot of the characters are in fact fairly Western, allowing for a balance.
ii) This balance is actually maintained in my opinion by the presence of characters from strikingly different cultures. The best examples are Lon'qu, Say'ri and Yen'fay. All three of them come from Chon'sin, which has multiple references to feudal Japan - this being present in the designs of the three characters in fact. As testament to the ingenuity of the game's support system, it is mostly through Lon'qu's support conversations that his story and details and Chon'sin are revealed.
Lon'qu and Say'ri
The interaction between characters and play space in Fire Emblem: Awakening is quite important to consider in terms of strategy and play that optimally suits the player's style, whilst the potential for deep connections to different characters of different cultures quite cleverly manipulates this and how the player decides to interact with the world.
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