How Casual Mode Changed The Fate Of Fire Emblem

screenrant.com:

Fire Emblem is a successful long-running Nintendo franchise, but it was the introduction of Casual Mode that truly made it into an A-list series. Fire Emblem has long been one of Nintendo's hardest series, and making it more accessible has proven to be very lucrative. A lot of the series' current success is likely related to Casual Mode.

Fire Emblem is a tactical RPG where the player commands an army of characters in each map. This army grows over the course of the game, gaining new members either through the story or from optional recruitments. The series has a reputation for being one of Nintendo's hardest, largely due to its permadeath mechanics. Whenever a player's unit dies, they are dead for the rest of the game unless the player reloads a previous save. This combined with the usual difficulty of the battles made the series a rather hardcore affair. However, the series was still popular enough for the first Fire Emblem's western release decades later to grab headlines.

Related: Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade Remake Rumors (& Why They May Be True)

Permadeath is not a mechanic seen in many popular games, although it is not unheard of. Fire Emblem is probably the most prominent series to feature permadeath as a core mechanic. However, that did place some limits on the series. One bad map could leave the player at a severe disadvantage for the rest of the game, especially if they lost their best units or were left without certain unit types. At the same time, a player could easily be disheartened upon losing their favorite character in battle and not being able to get them back. This made the game a fairly hard sell for those new to the franchise due to its punishing nature. For a long time, many players were more