the recent assassination of Desmond. Meanwhile, the embittered Zephiel is confronted by a robed man who accuses him of awakening a demon dragon, leading into the events of Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade. Development Fire Emblem, known in Japan as Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken, was created by series developer Intelligent Systems. Toru Narihiro and Takehiro Izushi from Intelligent Systems acted as producers, Hitoshi Yamagami from Nintendo supervised with Taeko Kaneda and Kentarou Nishimura as directors. The script was written by Ken Yokoyama and Kouhei Maeda. Character designs were done by Sachiko Wada, who would reprise her role for Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones. A second artist on the project was Ryo Hirata, who had previously done illustration work for Production I.G and would go on to work on The Sacred Stones. Eiji Kaneda, who worked on The Binding Blade, did uncredited illustration work. Background graphics, particularly those for the Fire Dragons, were done by Daisuke Izuka. Music was composed by Yuka Tsujiyoko, who had worked on every game since the series' inception, although Fire Emblem would be her last work on the series as a composer. She was helped by Saki Haruyama. Development of Fire Emblem began in 2002 after the release of The Binding Blade. Intended as a companion title built upon the foundation of The Binding Blade, development time was initially estimated at seven months. The storyline was built around three main characters and their strengths in battle; the central character Eliwood was made fairly weak to fit the concept of an "easy" mode for new players, while the Lyn and Hector both provided steeper gameplay challenges and altered story segments. As with The Binding Blade, the titular "Fire Emblem" was represented as a family crest. The gameplay, initially identical to The Binding Blade, underwent multiple changes including expansions on the role of the player in the storyline through the unseen strategist character, and the added tutorial stages helped introduce the mechanics to new players. Due to the multiple extra features, development ultimately lasted over a year. The tutorial was included because the game's steep difficulty was proving off-putting to new players; an inclusion made to make Fire Emblem a major series for Nintendo. Additional content could be unlocked by connecting the game to the Mario Kart: Double Dash Bonus Disc via a GameCube – Game Boy Advance link cable. Release Fire Emblem was first announced in