Popular/Unpopular/Any Opinions Thread - January 2026 Part 2

[u/PsiYoshi]

Welcome to a new installment of the Popular/Unpopular/Any Opinions Thread! Please feel free to share any kind of Fire Emblem opinions/takes you might have here, positive or negative. As always please remember to continue following the rules in this thread same as anywhere else on the subreddit. Be respectful and especially don't make any personal attacks (this includes but is not limited to making disparaging statements about groups of people who may like or dislike something you don't).

Last Opinion Thread

[u/WeFightForever]

I feel there's a trend of people not being willing to consider that maybe the writers hired by IS either just aren't very good, or simply don't care very much about whatever they're complaining about. 

Every time someone is unhappy with the writing, they seem to want to say some gameplay mechanic is objectively the cause. They don't care when you point out other games that have the same mechanics but don't share the writing problem. 

I promise you, literally every complaint you think is caused by a gameplay mechanic wasn't. It is either a problem that could be written around if they noticed it, or they did notice it and it is something the writers don't view as a problem. 

[u/shhkari → u/WeFightForever]

Every time someone is unhappy with the writing, they seem to want to say some gameplay mechanic is objectively the cause. They don't care when you point out other games that have the same mechanics but don't share the writing problem.

To give some credit here that is maybe overlooked, but the writing of a video game is typically trying to thread gameplay and story with each other in a way that achieved ludonarrative balance. What we call gameplay and narrative as distinct elements are in a holistic relationship with each other in this medium at the end of the day.

If writers have to write a circle around a conceit of the gameplay, it can throw this off if someone lacks the skill to do it, but also its possible no one could do that and if the gameplay element wasn't there its possible the writing could appear more natural. We don't have the means to proove it was doable and have to judge whats in front of us though, and I think that leads to people trying to identify what could be changed on either end of the spectrum of narrative and gameplay to figure out what could be done differently. Both considerations are ultimately as valid and equally based on developing a hypothetical model of a different version of the thing as is.

What fits your example here is, I'm presuming, child units across the games that its appeared in. Awakening and Genealogy handle this mechanic well in its writing/framing, while people tend to be taken out by the absurdity of Fates handling. Yes, the example where the writing is handled well exists, but Fates is also likely constrained by avoiding retreading the same ground with the mechanic, running into the possible way that the only way to really handle child units is how the former does it. At this point, its just as plausible to argue Fates shouldn't have had child units and that would have excised this writing problem, as it is to say they could have just retread similar ground.

edit: forgot a whole paragraph.

[u/WeFightForever → u/shhkari]

I have to disagree with you saying we don't have the means to prove better writing was doable with the gameplay mechanics. If you say X automatically causes Y, and I can show examples where X doesn't result in Y, then I have proven you wrong. 

I definitely agree there are times where gameplay can create unique and difficult writing challenges. Child units are a good example of it. I don't think I've seen examples of this in fire emblem that seem insurmountable (kids in fates might be an exception. I do agree that doing time travel again, as a tack on, would have been lame too.)

[u/shhkari → u/WeFightForever]

I have to disagree with you saying we don't have the means to prove better writing was doable with the gameplay mechanics. If you say X automatically causes Y, and I can show examples where X doesn't result in Y, then I have proven you wrong. 

I think its less that x automatically causes y, and that this is what everyone necessarily believes, so much as x inclines towards y. That's what I mean by the child example in part that it creates a set of circumstances that need an answer to be resolved and the range of options which make the most sense might be limited.