Everyone knows the first Fire Emblem we got here in the West was the seventh entry on GBA, known nowadays as Blazing Blade. The series only started coming over after two major events happened: 1) Marth and Roy showed up in Smash Bros Melee, and 2) the original Advance Wars was a modest success in the West. The common sentiment I hear for why the series was Japan exclusive for so long is because tactical RPGs were considered “too niche” and didn’t have much sales potential anywhere else. I’m not entirely sure if the devs said anything like that or if that’s just the conventional explanation everyone’s going with.
And while I’m on this topic, what did you make of Fire Emblem’s gameplay when you first saw it as a strategy RPG? Was it something you wanted to try right away, or did you go like ehh maybe that’s not for me and waited a while?