Emblem Warriors

Emblem Warriors would be a game exclusive to the Wii U as a follow-up to Hyrule Warriors, a collaboration between Tecmo Koei and Nintendo. The most obvious change would be that instead of being based in the Zelda universe, it would be based in the Fire Emblem universe, making for more characters and varied playstyles.

Even though the concept for Hyrule Warriors has received a lot of heat, I personally think it's an interesting idea, and an interesting way for series to cross over. However, when I further pondered the idea, I found myself wondering why Zelda was the franchise they decided to use for a tactical battle game. My thinking is that the main reason they used the Zelda franchise is because it's one of Nintendo's three most popular IPs along with Mario and Metroid, but I personally don't think it's the best suited universe for this genre of game.

Instead, I feel that Fire Emblem would be the most fitting and interesting franchise to cross over with Dynasty Warriors. It is based around battlefield control to begin with, and every game in the series contains a collection of cool characters. Moreover, each of them has different specialties in combat, which would translate to different playstyles in a Dynasty Warriors context. Above that, I feel like this is a good opportunity for me to show how I would alter the DW formula.

Plot
Given that this would be a non-canon spinoff game like Hyrule Warriors, I thought it would be a great idea to take the Smash Bros. route and cross over different eras in Fire Emblem both to add depth to the story and for theoretical fan service.

From a story standpoint, the most interesting part about this would be that time bending would be a key story element, and the universes of four games in the series would link up during the events of each game. These games would be: Thus, it would be a four-way crossover among the armies of Marth, Alm, Ike, and Chrom.
 * Fire Emblem: Monsho no Nazo / Shadow Dragon, which takes place mostly in Talys.
 * Fire Emblem Gaiden, which takes place on the continent of Valm.
 * Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, which takes place in Tellius.
 * Fire Emblem Awakening, which takes place in Ylisse.

The primary antagonist of the game would be a hybrid Earth Dragon and human named Yindra, who comes from the distant future after the events of every game in the series. For those who don't know, the Earth Dragons tend to act as antagonists or ultimate threats in Fire Emblem games.

In Yindra's time, every Earth Dragon has been sealed away and are permanently stripped of their power. However, Yindra is more than just part Earth Dragon - she was also born with the ability to manipulate time as though it were an element. Thus, she decides to tamper with the timestream and prevent the strongest heroes of the past from using the Fire Emblem to defeat the Earth Dragons in the first place. Together, the Earth Dragons could then defy the Divine Dragons led by Naga and establish a new world order where they reign supreme.

Yindra sends her strongest minions into the worlds of the four Fire Emblem armies I mentioned and they seize the different Emblems to bring them to Yindra so she can destroy them. (Obviously, this takes place at the point in each timeline when the Emblem is possessed by the army of protagonists.)  The heroes naturally fight back, and they stumble upon some of the time portals sustained by Yindra to send her forces to retrieve the Emblems, causing them to cross over timelines and fight in each other's timelines.

The heroes eventually realize what's going on, and join together as best they can to find Yindra and stop her once and for all to save the future.

Gameplay
With this game being a Dynasty Warriors spinoff, it would have the same basic gameplay, but I'll sum it up as I understand it for those who aren't familiar with it.

The object of Dynasty Warriors is essentially territory  control. Two opposing forces have their own bases, and victory is obtained when one side's main base is overwhelmed and captured.

As far as the actual gameplay goes, DW is an over-the-top hack and slash. One of its most common occurrences is a player unleashing a powerful combo and sending twenty enemies flying into the distance. That being said, even though there is some variations in enemy types and boss enemies, most of the enemies are just useless peons on lower difficulty levels, which has led many people to say the games are tedious or are simple power fantasies.

Changes
To be fair, I honestly do feel like Dynasty Warriors is a little too repetitive and easy until you put it on one of the two harder difficulties, at which point the game reportedly becomes brutally difficult. This is something that I think really needs to be fixed, and it could be easily done: if I were making this game, I would leave the easy difficulty relatively easy, although I would make the AI a slightly bigger threat to answer most people's complaints. Other than that, the only thing necessary would be to reduce the difficulty curve from normal to hard difficulty, thus making ultimate difficulty more significant.

Going back to gameplay details, since different characters in the FE universe have different priorities such as speed, healing, and strength, this would influence both their combat abilities and their usefulness to allies. For example, Archers can do more damage from a distance, despite not being able to keep up with Knights and Warriors at close range. Paladins can summon their mounts every so often and charge through large groups of enemies to break their ranks. Priests or clerics like Rhys or Lissa have some offensive capability, but can also heal other players if they're surrounded, which is helpful on harder difficulties. In this way, every class and character has its use.

Support
A well-know feature of more recent Fire Emblem games is support, whereby units who battle together more often can have conversations to become more powerful together in battle. Any two units fighting together would be able to develop three levels of support by helping each other out  or pairing up in battle.

Speaking of which, it would be possible to specifically pair up with up to two other players during battle and accompany them across the battlefield. This would be the best way to build up the relationships between players, and strengthen your army for harder fights.

Battlefields
My idea would be to have every distinct battlefield from the four games be battlefields in this game as well to add variation, since the essence of this game is maintaining control over a large, complex area. Thus, the battlefields would include locations like Ylisstol, Zofia, and Regna Ferox. However, some locations may be blended into one battlefield if they have a similar size and appearance.

Altea

 * Marth
 * Shiida
 * Jagen
 * Draug
 * Gordin
 * Ogma
 * Merric
 * Nabarl

Valm

 * Alm
 * Celica
 * Ruka
 * Mae
 * Boey
 * Clair
 * Savor
 * Mycen

Tellius

 * Ike
 * Titania
 * Rhys
 * Boyd
 * Rolf
 * Jill
 * Soren
 * Mia

Ylisse

 * Chrom
 * Lissa
 * Frederick
 * Lon'qu
 * Sully
 * Virion
 * Kellam
 * Cordelia

Bonus Characters

 * Roy
 * Lyn
 * Eliwood
 * Sigurd
 * Eirika
 * Seth
 * Panne
 * Tiki
 * Basilio
 * Flavia
 * Lucina
 * Avatar (can be thoroughly customized by the player.  Multiple versions can exist in one game.)

Unlockable Enemy Characters

 * Yindra
 * Ashnard
 * Nergal
 * Validar
 * Victor
 * Vincent
 * Dozah
 * Medeus
 * Hardin
 * The Black Knight

Multiplayer
Given that this is a Dynasty Warriors game, there should be a good multiplayer option to appeal to everyone. I have a few ideas for multiplayer, so I'll list them one by one: The two previous gamemodes are based around having armies on both sides. However, I thought of 3 gamemodes that could have minions toggled on and off.
 * Co-op - Fight battles with friends.  This can be done in either story mode or free play missions.
 * Versus - Fight battles against friends in up to 2-on-2 battles.  This can be done in either story mode or free play missions.
 * Capture the Flag - Play classic capture the flag in up to 2-on-2 matches in specialized battlefields.
 * Duel - Two teams or players fight it out and try to defeat each other.
 * Free-for-All - Up to four players fight a pre-determined amount of other characters and try to win out under pre-determined conditions.
 * Team Free-for-All - Up to four players choose however many AI characters for their team to battle it out.