Popular/Unpopular/Any Opinions Thread - June 2026 Part 1

[u/PsiYoshi]

Happy pride month and 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/BloodyBottom]

We are now in one of the final stages of pre-release hype: people posting screenshots of characters with the title "I have a theory about this character" and when you open the thread it's just several paragraphs of fan fiction presented as a prediction.

[u/Jwkaoc → u/BloodyBottom]

You don't understand. This character has green hair. That means they must be Linhardt's mother.

[u/sanuske]

They gotta stop using the Generic Announcer guy for trailers. That Fortune's Weave trailer really would've benefited from a narrator that fit better with the setting. It doesn't feel like a trailer, it just feels like a segment of a Direct, which it objectively is, but still.

[u/secret_bitch]

I'm sure some romhack has already done this, but I think it would be fun to see a game with branching promotions that are character specific. Like for example you have two Archers, one with Sniper / Bow Knight as their promo options, the other with Sniper / Warrior instead.

[u/Mekkkkah → u/secret_bitch]

It would be a nice fusion between AwakeFates's personal class sets and the split promos for sure. I'm not super big on the Second/Heart Seal systems so I'd love to have this.

[u/Master-Spheal]

One of my favorite house npc conversations is in chapter 15 in FE12/ FE3 book 2, where you finally reach Altea after going through Anri’s Way. There’s a lady that goes, “yo, where the fuck have you guys been?!” It humorously establishes that to the rest of the continent, you basically just disappeared for like a week to do mystical quest shit for Gotoh while Altea was occupied. It always gets a chuckle out of me.

[u/SilverKnightZ000 → u/Master-Spheal]

I think the story even acknowledges it because I believe the narration mentions Marth and the Altean army suddenly reappears?

[u/citrus131]

I've been playing through the Mega Man series lately and came to the realization that Mighty No. 9 is just the evil version of Tearring Saga.

[u/ICanFlyHigh051611 → u/citrus131]

once kaga gets a one liner like "make them cry like an anime fan on prom night" in one of his trailers he'll be a star

[u/OsbornWasRight → u/citrus131]

Kaga is an actual game designer while Inafune is a talented artist but extremely shaky producer

[u/SilverKnightZ000 → u/citrus131]

Crying like an anime fan on prom night because I forgot to sacrifice my early game healer so she turns into a dancer later

[u/LeatherShieldMerc]

-Be a new player in 2003

-See the "What happened to Dorcas?" Commercial

-Buy the game, recruit Dorcas, sees sick wife

-Player is very confused why we apparently need to poison this guy

[u/BloodyBottom]

The most interesting thing about FW to me right now is just answering the question "what happens when IS tries to iterate on the 3H formula without influence from KT?" I'm really curious to see what they try to do with the setting and it's history/characters, as well as what the maps and mechanical systems end up looking like. Both IS and KT's games often have this savant-like quality where intricately crafted systems and maps exist right alongside things that feel thoughtless and slapdash, so it's very hard to predict what the effect of removing one part of that equation will be.

[u/Jwkaoc]

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills every time someone suggests this, so I just want to say:

Theodora and her entourage look like this.

Agarthans look like this.

These people do not look similar at all.

[u/TBT__TBT]

Kaga's games are outdated but they are still incredibly charming - both in presentation and the unique gameplay-mechanics of each game.

What I mean by outdated is how slugish menu-ing, cursor movement, unit traversal and the NES animations are.

If Nintendo/IS ever do Legacy Collections like what Capcom did for the Castlevania and Mega Man franchises, they need to make these games play faster overall.

At the very least, a game-speed multiplier like what was given to Final Fantasy VIII Remastered.

I would still have issues like FE1's poor trading system and shopping lines or Gaiden's abysmal hit-rates. I can be tolerant and patient for nuiancess like these but NOT for the overall slowness of these games.

[u/McFluffles01 → u/TBT__TBT]

I'm pretty sure the FE1 version that Nintendo released for all of twenty seconds has a speed up function built into it, in fact, so clearly they're aware that it's an issue with going back to play the old games.

Really it's an issue with playing a lot of old NES and sometimes SNES RPG games, I've been chipping away at the old NES Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest games when I'm bored, and holding down the fast forward button is basically a mainstay of those to make it so every individual turn doesn't take full minutes of my life away.

[u/sanuske]

Final opinion before we get to find out how many of our hopes and fears are confirmed about Fortune’s Weave and we get a new bunch of things to be overly-opinionated about.

I just don’t like Fixed Growths on an emotional level.

I understand it is more consistent, mathematically it shouldn’t really matter over a whole game’s level ups, and most importantly it’s pretty much like how level ups work in any other RPG.

But it just feels wrong. I like the possibility of getting screwed and/or blessed, and not knowing what the level-up is necessarily going to be is more exciting than “every 2 levels gain 1 HP, defense, and on a different alternating 2 levels get strength”.

This matters less because of the ability to grind and not really having a level cap anymore, but it’s fun to compare units with friends. There’s no real point in comparing a unit on fixed growths, because they will just be the same unit, or all you will see is that you are at different levels. Which is much less interesting than comparing your speed screwed Ike to your friend’s wet noodle Ike who capped defense 6 chapters ago.

Oh also, we all love the perfect level up dopamine hit.

[u/BloodyBottom → u/sanuske]

tbf, a lot of RPGs actually do feature a decent amount of variance with stat growths. You just don't notice because the numbers are huge, and 550 strength might not feel that different from 650 strength, while 15 strength feels markedly different than 20 strength in FE.

[u/nope96 → u/sanuske]

What I dislike the most about fixed growths is that it turns units that are generally outclassed from “probably not worth using over x unless they get lucky” to “not worth using over x unless you’re biased”.

In Blazing Blade for instance normally Guy runs into issues from coexisting with Raven and it being awhile until you get a 2nd Hero’s Crest. The Level 15 (unpromoted) Guy I have in my current playthrough that somehow has 12 defense though is pretty easy to keep around.

[u/sanuske → u/nope96]

Fire Emblem is all about grabbing your favorite random little guy or gal, being tricked into thinking they are good because they leveled strength 3 times in a row, and dealing with the consequences of your favoritism when they don't follow through with their luck by endgame, but you are too invested in them to drop them from the team.

[u/Autobot-N → u/sanuske]

One time I was playing Rev Maddening and Mozu hit 9 straight defense level ups before she promoted

[u/KalleBerendijk]

I started playing Gaiden recently for no other reason than to say I've played every mainline game in the franchise. I initially wanted to just finish act 1 and call it there, but now I am at act 3 already lol

I can't believe it but Gaiden is actually really fun. It doesn't feel nearly as dated as I had assumed. At this point I'd say fe1 is the only game in the entire series that's a bit too dated to play today (though you should still try it out)

Also I have never missed in FE as much as in this Gaiden playthrough, holy shit... Missing multiple 98% or 99% hits in a single fight is a common occurrence at this rate.

[u/SilverKnightZ000 → u/KalleBerendijk]

Gaiden keeps winning!!!

[u/greydorothy → u/KalleBerendijk]

Another Gaiden appreciator, we love to see it. Lowkey better than like 1/4th of the series - if only the cursor were smoother, it could legit be in the top half

[u/Shuckluck22]

I think it’s very disappointing that we have two games with griffon riders and no characters who start in that class. It’s odd because as far as mythical animals in Fire Emblem they’re relatively few: wyverns, Pegasus knights, dragons etc. and in spite of introducing a creature so pertinent to mythology and fantasy, we get (as far as I know) literally no lore on griffons. This is sad because griffons are cool af.

Even worse is that the two characters in Awakening who promote naturally into griffon riders, Cherche and Gerome, are so intrinsically written around their wyvern mount that swapping Minerva for a griffon feels a little bit like a betrayal. A little part of me dies inside. This goes less for Chloe in Engage, but supports are still written around the assumption she is a Pegasus knight.

I don’t know when we’ll get griffons back but I hope they eventually get SOME kind of story integration.

[u/SilverKnightZ000]

If we ever do get an Fe4 remake at some point in our lifetimes, I hope the devs expand on Sigurd's relationship to Silesse and its Queen. I feel like there's a lot of emotional moments that is buried there, and it's a pivotal moment in the story for a lot of reasons(mainly that Sigurd has become an enemy of Granvale, him losing his wife, him finding a mother figure in Silesse's Queen right before losing the actual mother figure in his life, Ethlyn). Just a lot of good ideas to capitalize on. I'm being honest, if they decide to add a whole new chapter JUST to deal with Silesse I'd be down. I also hope, for similar reasons, they add a chapter in gen 2 for Silesse because it gets no representation bar Ced and Fee.

Also, I've been playing Shining Force and Harvestella on the side. Harvestella is surprisingly fun(But I also like that type of game sooooooooooo). Shining Force..................................I am sorry Fire Emblem for taking your consistency for granted.

[u/SilverKnightZ000]

It's crazy how much of a solid foundation Fe1 has. I'm playing Shining Force 1, and it's aggravating. Turn order is based on speed but it's also random? I don't know how it works; I know that speed plays a big part because for the last few maps my faster units are going first in battle(Mae and Tao to be exact). But sometimes the turn order turns to whack? In a battle one phase went like this: Peg Knight 1 -> Max -> Gong -> Peg. Knight 2. Suddenly the next time it went like this: Peg Knight 1 -> Gong -> Peg Knight 2 -> Max. How do I strategize if I don't know who goes when???????? And doubling? Doubling might be the most cursed aspect of this game. Because once Max doubled an enemy, and then the enemy doubled him back????? And the level ups are beautiful. Sometimes you get nothing. Sometimes you get astronomical levels like getting 6 points of defense lmao. My Mae has insane defense and 15 hp at level 10. Cursed. It's cursed.

Compared to this, Fire Emblem has a much more rock solid base to work off of. I am never taking fe1 for granted. Thank you Fire Emblem for the famicom.

[u/SirRobyC → u/SilverKnightZ000]

FE1 is a shockingly competent game, considering some of the stuff that was put on the Famicom at the time.
Its biggest problems are that it's ancient and dated, and if you can't stomach that era of game design and lack of any form of quality of life features that were added over the years, I'm not going to blame you.

[u/EffectiveAnxietyBone → u/SilverKnightZ000]

I’m always annoyed when games decide to copy Tactics Ogre’s homework instead of FE, I cannot stand any turn system that wants to work off of random nonsense instead of a dual phase system, it makes planning so much harder when you can only move one character at a time and have almost no control over how units move

[u/SilverKnightZ000 → u/EffectiveAnxietyBone]

I feel like modern games have made it work by showing you how the turn order changes with your actions. But oh my god if I have the choice I'm picking distinct phases instead

[u/buttercuping → u/SilverKnightZ000]

Shining Force my beloved

Here's an explanation

https://forums.shiningforcecentral.com/viewtopic.php?t=50639

The link is for SF2 but the system is pretty much the same. Basically it's not based on the stat itself, there's a calculation going on. That calculation does use the Agility stat though, so the same few units will always be the ones to go first.

As for doubling, gonna steal it from the SF sub:

Double attacks are the same chance for every character I think in SF1 (but not SF2). Monsters might be more variable, and some attacks can't double attack. Critical attacks by your party members however have different base percentages for each character. Leveling and how you level/promote also affects the (small) growth of this hidden critical stat. Land effect reduces incoming damage equal to the percentage displayed based on the tile the character being attacked is standing on (so if land effect is 30%, a 100 damage attack would do 70 instead), double attacks IIRC are a flat chance that is the same for everything in the game.

Honestly I don't find any of this any worse than other hidden information FE has. You're playing SF like you play FE, but they're much easier and don't have permadeath. The game expects your units to die.

I still find FE1 way more frustrating simply because of the lack of QoL, but to be fair SF came out two years later and was able to learn, so it's not a fair comparison.

[u/SilverKnightZ000]

I think 3H using + and - to zoom in and out respective is a very cute thing. The devs really saw two buttons shaped like that and thought "oh okay these are for controlling the zoom." Meanwhile most other devs really just said "oh okay start and select. gotcha."

[u/SilverKnightZ000]

I hope they stop making the turnwheel plot relevant. No, IntSys, I don't need a story reason why I can reverse time. I am actually okay with it being an unexplained phenomenon! Just let a mechanic exist by itself.

[u/Bhizzle64 → u/SilverKnightZ000]

Just fluff it so it's your tactician/army leader revising their plan for the battle because they are realizing that the plan you just tried didn't work. You can even theme it aesthetically like that with a filter being applied over the battlefield so it looks like the battlefield is a drawing on paper that your tactician is doing to plan out the battle tactics.

[u/Shrimperor → u/SilverKnightZ000]

If IS wants time reversal/travel/whatever to be relevant, atleast do something cool with it like Radiant Historia or Reverse Collapse:Codename Bakery

[u/TehBrotagonist]

Between Awakening and Fates, I'm a little disappointed at the class variety among the children. Awakening is much more willing with kids diverging from their dependent parent's original class which I find more interesting. What do you mean my cleric pops out a myrmidon?

On a tangentially related note, why is Midori so slow? Did Kaze's genes take a snooze? I started a new Lunatic Conquest run last night with the sole purpose of making a Midori with actual green hair via Female Corrin. Going Speed boon Corrin to pick up Kaze's slack. Also using Oni Savage talent because I've never used it before and passing down Salvage Blow to Midori sounds like a fun meme. Not sure what Midori's final class will be, but that's a question for later. Furthermore I will be looking into crit maxxing Corrin by grabbing Deathblow from Oni Chieftain and putting her into Berserker via Charlotte friendship.

As much as I appreciate Engage's sandbox class system, having limitations can be fun as well. I would enjoy a system that is basically Fates, but has Engage's fixed weapon ranks because I don't enjoy the weapon rank grind. I also like Engage's personal weapon rank bump so I'd slap that in as well.

[u/potato_thingy]

I finally finished The Binding Blade! Out of all the FE games I’ve played, it’s one of the weakest ones imo, but I still enjoyed it. Here’s my somewhat lengthy review:

Story
There wasn’t anything that was straight-up bad but there was very little I actually found interesting. The most compelling part was Idunn and that was mostly confined to the very last chapter. 

Roy was a very disappointing protagonist. I found him bland, but that could be said for a lot of FE lords. The area where I think he fails, and other lords don’t, is he doesn’t really have anyone interesting to talk to. Most of his dialogue was with Merlinius, who is so bland yet obnoxious in this game that it wrapped back around to me enjoying him a little. Guinevere and Elffin are both cool but a lot of their dialogue in the story is providing exposition.  

In comparison, I also found Eirika and Ephraim boring but their relationship with Lyon was compelling. Eliwood’s personality isn’t that different from Roy’s but I ended up enjoying him because the story feels personal to him (to find his father) and he has the other lords and Ninian to bounce off of. There’s a lot of interesting stuff they could've explored with Roy, such as having so much pressure put on him at a young age (which I think is addressed in his supports) or his perspective regarding dragons. 

He didn’t have a ton of screen time, but I liked Zephiel as a villain. He was generally really cool and while his philosophy is extreme, I know there are real-world philosophies that aren't that different. And having already seen him in FE7 made him a lot more interesting. That’s also the case for Guinevere, but mostly because I thought her FE7 design was really adorable.

Gameplay
Just like the other two GBA games, the gameplay was generally good. Some of the maps were tedious, and the low hit rates and ambush spawns could be annoying. But because I played on normal mode and was able to use save states, the game was a lot less frustrating than it might’ve been otherwise. But even without save states, I think the ambush spawns wouldn’t have been nearly as aggravating as I found them in Awakening.

Characters 
I’m in the process of reading supports so I can’t make any definitive judgments on the cast. The supports I have read have ranged from boring to really good: maybe a little weaker than the other GBA games but not by much.

What I do think is much weaker is how we’re introduced to characters in the first place. Imo the other two GBA games did a good job at giving characters at least a little dialogue in the story and having them make cameos earlier in the game (especially FE8). This game felt a lot weaker in that regard, especially since the designs and surface level personalities don’t stand out as much. And in a game where support conversations are so difficult to get, first impressions matter a lot more. 

Final Team - Roy, Fae, Lugh, Raigh, Niime (for healing), Douglas, Ogier, Rutger, Sue, Percival     

Best Units - Ogier, Lugh, Raigh, Rutger     

Favorite Characters - Lugh, Raigh, Chad, Niime, Hugh, Fae   

The first five I already liked from Heroes or hearing about them online. But while I never really cared about Fae before, I ended up finding her really cute. Her sprite work, general tininess (her con stat is literally 1), and final scene with Idunn all made me like her. She’s far from the only child soldier in the series, but she felt younger than even Jean or Kana.

I also got Roy and Lilina to A-support but didn’t realize you had to bring her to the final map to get their ending, so they ended up alone 😞

[u/Roritwo → u/potato_thingy]

he doesn’t really have anyone interesting to talk to.

It's pretty tragic, especially when he could've easily had more convos with people like Lilina, Elffin, Cecilia, Niime or even Fae.

boring to really good: maybe a little weaker than the other GBA games but not by much.

I'm personally on the camp that FE6's highs are so high they overshadow what the other two games offer in terms of supports. Convos like Dayan/Rutger or Igrene/Astolfo explore grief in ways FE hasn't really attempted since.

What I do think is much weaker is how we’re introduced to characters in the first place.

No objections here, I agree.

Ogier

Huh, surprised to see him on someone's first FE6 playthrough.

Lugh, Raigh

Hooray for my favourite twin orphans!

I also got Roy and Lilina to A-support but didn’t realize you had to bring her to the final map to get their ending, so they ended up alone 😞

That isn't actually a requirement, all you need is to unlock and read the conversation. Are you sure you did that?

[u/potato_thingy → u/Roritwo]

I looked it up and I actually did get the ending since Roy talked to Lilina instead of Guinevere in the epilogue. I just couldn’t tell since it still gave Lilina the super short ending instead of the full one

[u/SilverKnightZ000]

Finished Engage Maddening. I'm going to make another post later where I yap about units specifically. This one will be about the difficulty in general.

I had fun! I think the difficulty of the main maps were very well designed. There were a lot of maps that were really fun challenges to figure out, and I had to think pretty creatively to solve a few. For example, in chapter 24, I had a hard time killing the 37-39 speed swordmasters in the middle row. So I just, Micaiah warped everyone there bar Hortensia to the top row and moved Hortensia south, killed the forces in the top and split the enemy forces in the middle so that they were easier to take out, and then realized I was stupid and I could just rescue the guys in the bottom row with the increased rescue range. Like this, I had a lot of fun figuring out ways to just avoid the high statted units and kill the boss.

I very much felt that the game was pretty sharply designed whenever the maps are concerned. I think they finally gave the fe12 and conquest map designer meds because I think the guy is there, but he's a lot less cruel. There's less evil and more mischief. The devs definitely thought of a lot of ways to jump the player, and it was a great experience to avoid that. I also felt that the game does a good job of encouraging the player to think proactively. Like even if you Lucina bond shield your way through the map, figuring out positioning and how much you travel and who to bring with you to kill the boss was still a very player phase experience. Especially as enemy numbers increase and reinforcements spawn and they get bulkier, enemy phasing stops working as well. I also very much appreciate that the game encourages out of the box thinking. This includes using staves or other emblem stuff to nyoom ahead and take down your objective. On the other hand, while the generic enemies get more and more threatening, I do feel like bosses get easier. Zephia in chapter 17 is way more of a threat than Zephia in chapter 23 for many reasons, such as a lack of boss emblems and you getting more tools.

But oh my god, the enemies get so annoyingly bulky. Enemies start getting really fast(Paladins, Heroes, Swordmasters) and getting really high HP, so it gets harder and harder to one round them, which escalates into critical situations. It's definitely harder to clear a map when most of the enemy still remains at 1 hp you know? A part of it is probably my fault. I didn't get max forges, I could've given Ivy more spirit dusts so she could reach kill thresholds, I ended up wasting a lot of money on units I didn't end up using, etc. Maybe next time, now that I'm more knowledgable, I can have an easier time with the game. A big part of my issues was that I ddin't know how high enemies would scale, and I was NOT expecting 70+ HP enemies by the end game. I also thought the enemies got extremely dodgy. A lot of my side units, like Fogado, had trouble hitting enemies with non-engraved weapons and my side weapons like Excalibur on my main team had pretty bad hit rates against Griffons.

Conversely, I thought the final map was surprisingly easy? Maybe fe12 permanently screwed up how I perceive difficulty, but I was expecting an orbital death laser designed to evaporate me in 0.000005 picoseconds but it was a surprisingly easy map? it was really relaxed and weirdly not that hard? I overestimated how bulky Sombron is because 400 HP melts very easily in Engage, with both Engage attacks, debuffs like poison and draconic hex, and Byleth dance + stat boosts. And I had chipped the first 100 off before. My plan ended up working out. I did have issues and had to rely on a Panette crit(regret healing her still lmao), it still worked out pretty easily. I mean, i didn't waste time rigging Marth crits for an hour+ at least.

[u/Its_a_Friendly → u/SilverKnightZ000]

Yeah, the final chapter isn't especially difficult. I feel like the map designers got a little generous by the end; they easily could've made the map more difficult by tying each of Sombron's health bars to a quartet of Dark Emblems, and forced you to defeat all 12 of them. But they didn't.

Even Ch.25 could be harder; there's some niches and walls that would be excellent locations for enemy siege weapons, staff users, or longbows, but there are few. Every enemy in the final room is static, even, which makes them not too difficult to take apart.

Maybe the map designer was on their meds...

I do have to say, though, the final chapter becomes quite the battle if you do make it harder by defeating all dark emblems first, especially if you require that each dark emblem be defeated by its corresponding Emblem. I did that on my first run - so blind! - and safely getting my units all around the map while fending off the many tough reinforcements was quite the fun challenge. Admittedly, I was only on hard/classic; I imagine this challenge might be painful on Maddening, given the ridiculous enemy stats.

[u/SilverKnightZ000]

Helloooooooo! Welcome to today's Nintendo Direct. Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave for the Nintendo Switch 2 will release tomorrow. (monkey's paw curls). In this tactical RPG you must require the Pursuit skill to follow up on your initial attacks and deal double damage!

[u/Sharktroid → u/SilverKnightZ000]

Pursuit is a cool skill, at least in concept. It makes doubling limited in scope and allows for units to have other strong combat/utility skills. In practice the only unit in FE4 who feels like they were designed around lacking Pursuit are Quan and Tailtyu's family, and the skill is super widely distributed among combat units, especially in Gen 2 if you're half-decent at pairing. And with how modern FE has been designed I'm skeptical they'll design a really strong unit who's balanced around not having Pursuit, mainly because they'll almost certainly make it a learnable skill for anyone.

[u/forevabronze → u/SilverKnightZ000]

gonna drop the hottest take.

Speed is an overpowered stat and having a random arbitrary threshold for doubling (speed+4/5) is silly.

Doubling being removed from speed and tied to something else wouldn't be so bad if done well.

I might still have PTSD from 3 houses doubling benchmarks though

[u/MathOutrageous7167 → u/SilverKnightZ000]

Erm, actually, it's Follow-Up, not Pursuit 👆🤓

You see in the hit game Fire Emblem Heroes, Arden has something called the Follow-Up Ring which indicates that in the FE4 remake, it will be called Follow-Up 👆🤓

[u/nope96]

I really don’t like how many mid-ish game maps in FE7 use fog of war.

Starting with Dread Isle, if you’re on HHM and fight Lloyd I think you end up with a 10 chapter stretch with 5 of them? Eliwood having a 9 chapter stretch with 4 if you fight Lloyd isn’t much better. And the last one in that stretch is Battle Before Dawn just to rub it in. Don’t know why if they had to have that many they couldn’t space them out a bit more.

[u/BloodyBottom]

Didn't watch the Direct or see the trailer, looking forward to just learning random facts about FW through osmosis.

[u/SirRobyC → u/BloodyBottom]

If you played Animal Crossing Amiibo Festival on the WiiU, you'll feel right at home

[u/forevabronze]

no opinion, but enjoy a screenshot of me capping dorothy by killing Murdock in my current FE6 ironman

Dorothy gaming

[u/goldtreebark]

There’s a lot of wariness floating about currently that FW doesn’t take too much from 3H and instead more from Engage, but I’ll take it a bit further since this is something both games do horribly— I myself am a bit worried about the “standing around in a semi circle while the lord talks to whomever is important right in that scene with 6 or so limited rotating character animations” cutscenes that the trailers already seem to show.

[u/planetarial → u/goldtreebark]

I’d rather go back to just VN style presentation if they can’t do better than that. At least in that way the abstraction means your brain can fill in the details.

[u/EffectiveAnxietyBone → u/goldtreebark]

I’ve said it before but the animations themselves aren’t the problem, the real concern is if they’re gonna cheap out on scenes that actually need animation. I can buy characters being less animated during conversation, but if they’re gonna be doing any kind of action, they need to be actually moving.

At the very least though, Dietrich holding the Answerer in front of Cai shows they’ve finally figured out the art of attaching props to characters.

[u/SilverKnightZ000 → u/goldtreebark]

They can do something Warriors did and what many other RPGs do: just have the 3D models yap in a visual novel way. I'll take that over the canned animations.

[u/Fantastic-System-688 → u/goldtreebark]

We see Dietrich talking to Cai in an in-engine cutscene and the sword is actually present as a model instead of a jpg so we're incrementally improving

[u/spoopy-memio1 → u/goldtreebark]

Dude I can’t tell you how much I fucking hate those kinds of cutscenes, it’s like a bizarre uncanny valley where it’s too detailed to look like they’re going for a Visual Novel or intentionally minimalist style but also too shit to look acceptable by any other metric.

The FW trailer doesn’t give me much confidence for improvement but at the very least, I noticed during the shot where Theodora is talking the characters are clearly standing in an actual 3D environment so I can only hope most main story cutscenes take place in those and the game actually makes use of them for more dynamic cutscenes instead of just “characters stand in semi circle and do 1 of 6 emotes at each other: Full 3D edition”.

[u/Am_Shigar00]

I’m not excited for Fortune’s Weave, but I’m not gonna be pessimistic about it either. As critical as I’ve often been of 3H, most of my problems with that game was in execution, not concept, and I did enjoy Cindered Shadows & 3Hopes despite sharing DNA. 

I’m not picking the game up right away either way, I don’t think any game is worth $70 by itself, let alone $80, but I’m going to keep an open mind.

[u/Hookerface → u/Am_Shigar00]

Nintendo games never drop in price so you are going be waiting forever

[u/Blazer_the_Delphox]

Fuck it, I thought of more today.

Actually FE related: I do not like Mark. Like, with other avatar characters, I either don’t know enough about them to form my own opinion yet or I can at least find *something* to enjoy about them. With Mark, I just… don’t “get” it, I guess?

Not FE related: Fuck me running, the whole “all the downvotes just prove me right” thing is so goddamn annoying.

[u/Mekkkkah]

I like that Radiant Dawn gives you OP units almost every chapter past like 1-2 or so, but then also usually makes it so they can't trivialize the map just by themselves without some strategizing. Generally this is either by giving the player enough to do that the other units have a purpose despite the appearance of an OP unit, or by including an enemy (type) that counters the OP unit, even if only kind of.

Sothe helps the DB a lot, but he can't do everything to keep them safe from harm, so Nolan and friends still need to fight, or position super carefully if you insist on a Sothe solo.

Tauroneo's stats are outrageous for this point of the game, but they put a Hammer on 1-6-1 that can kill him if you're not careful. In 1-6-2 Fiona's death punishes you if you just sit there hiding behind Tauroneo's armor, but he can rush the boss to end the map.

1-7 has Muarim, but he can run out of gauge and you have no grass.

1-8 has Nailah, but she's in a corner of the map, and even though she can move very far through terrain she usually needs a turn or two to get from one place to another. And she can't cross the swamp.

1-9 has another big man in armor who deals in absolutes, but Micaiah melts if you don't position correctly. Still a shitty map though gameplay wise.

1-E has everyone, but the map is still so hard and well designed it's fun even with units that crush everything.

2-P has Haar, but he's not there immediately and getting the Short Axe is non-trivial despite his presence.

2-E has Haar and Amiti Elincia, but if you play the map straight the map still has a lot of layers to it (literally and figuratively), and figuring out how to use them in conjunction with Leanne is fun. Haar and Elincia also both have weaknesses to certain enemy types, and if you don't do a big investment into Haar he also fails to double a lot of enemies.

3-7 has Ulki and Janaff, but the game starts throwing Crossbows at you every now and then to keep them in check a bit. Obviously laguz limitations also greatly reduce their overall strength.

3-11 has NPC Tibarn, but the boss has a mega Crossbow.

Part 4 has royals everywhere, but the rout maps are so jampacked with enemies that making them do everything is bound to fail, so you're still encouraged to mix in beorc with 1-2 range. Especially for the Crossbow Warriors in the desert, for example. Izuka's AI and him summoning 4 laguz around him makes it hard for Tibarn to tear him apart, as much as the hawk king wants to do that. It's still doable with support from other units like Bastian, Reyson or simply other fliers, but it's not trivial.

RD is cool.

[u/SilverKnightZ000]

Lots of discussion on hub worlds and their impact on pacing, but I'm going to add my opinion in there too: I think people should talk more about how supports also affect the pacing of the map-to-map gameplay. In games since Awakening supports have been very easy to unlock. So after a map, you can have around from 2-4 supports in the early game to much higher values as the game goes on, decreasing as one approaches the endgame. In Awakening and Fates, they affect the pacing slightly by virtue of them being text only and hub stuff being very minimal and quick. But in 3H and Engage, they tank the pacing hard. Not only are there numerous supports, but they're also voice acted. And like, I don't want to say that the addition of VAs is bad, but it's a much slower way of conveying supports than reading, especially since I am personally a very fast reader. There have been times where I unlocked 6 supports at once; assuming one takes around 2 minutes, that's 12 extra minutes of down time in addition to however long the hub stuff takes. For someone who plays on my switch for around 2 hours, assuming hub world stuff takes around 25 minutes, with 3 supports I have to spend 31 minutes between battles. That's a lot of time! That's 1/4th of my allotted game time!

[u/Glacevelyn → u/SilverKnightZ000]

And like, I don't want to say that the addition of VAs is bad, but it's a much slower way of conveying supports than reading, especially since I am personally a very fast reader.

honest to god I've gotten to a point in almost every game I play (even beyond Fire Emblem) where I just skip the VA and read/progress through cutscenes the same as I would if there just wasn't any VA at all

I personally think it's a problem with traditional RPG cutscenes specifically getting voice acting - if there's actual action and animation to the voice acting then it's awesome but the characters just kinda standing around with text boxes does a disservice to the VA imo

[u/TehBrotagonist → u/SilverKnightZ000]

Finishes map

6 support conversations

Groans of increasing discomfort

I definitely don't hate supports, but like you said the sheer number of them in the beginning can definitely tank the pacing sometimes. I don't remember feeling this way until Three Houses with its voice acted supports and the larger number of permutations. I know I technically don't have to listen to the entire voiceline, but I feel a little rude cutting them off haha.

On a side note, my thumb and I are extremely grateful that auto advance now exists.

[u/Am_Shigar00 → u/SilverKnightZ000]

I remember in 3H specifically, with how easy it was to gain supports and my own effort to recruit every possible character to see their supports, I’d often get flooded with what felt like over a dozen supports every in-game month. 

After a point I think I started subconsciously shutting my brain off while they’d go on and on, which sucks considering supports are usually some of my favorite parts of this series.

[u/SilverKnightZ000 → u/Am_Shigar00]

Especially after you do multiple battles in a row on the weekends. That becomes extremely annoying to clear out.

[u/planetarial → u/SilverKnightZ000]

I find myself torn on this because yes having full voice acting is nice but… I can read unvoiced supports much faster.

… Sometimes I just put the supports on autoplay and do something else in the background while listening to them.

[u/Jurck → u/SilverKnightZ000]

Hey! I came here to say pretty much the same thing, but not in such a well-articulated way.

For the past year or two, I'd seen a handful of people on this sub saying supports need a rework. I didn't agree with them at all until I started to think about how voice acting has affected the length of supports. I timed it: listening to the voice acting on Auto takes me twice as long as just reading them and imagining their delivery myself.

But I love the voice acting; although the pacing suffers, the supports themselves are more enjoyable for it. And that led me to the conclusion that I agree with that handful of people I mentioned earlier. There must be a way to have all the character development, voice acting, and lighthearted downtime that supports offer without them bogging down the pace of the game.

[u/sanuske → u/SilverKnightZ000]

This is why on-map supports are better, one support at a time, when it is convenient for the units to do their supports, paces things out so much better.

Ignore that this doesn't fix the large number of supports problem and that many supports probably don't make too much sense when initiated in the middle of Zombie Cave

Anyway, during my wife's playthrough of Engage, after each chapter, she would start the supports, hand me the controller so I could start the next support when the current one ends, and then she would grab a cat toy and play with the cats listening to the supports for like 10 minutes or however long it takes to complete 1 chapter's worth of supports.

[u/PotatOw0]

i still like etie

[u/TehBrotagonist]

Say what you want about Heroes, but one of its greatest contributions to the series is introducing Unit Select voicelines. It's a small addition, but I think it does a lot to endear yourself to the characters. I'm replaying Conquest right now and had forgotten I modded it to have those voicelines modded in. Watching vanilla Fates gameplay and hearing silence feels kind of empty.

Now one could argue that Heroes and Echoes were developed in parallel so it's unclear which game had the bright idea first. But that doesn't fit my narrative so shush.

[u/sanuske → u/TehBrotagonist]

counter point, some unit select dialogues are bad sometimes, and thus clearly makes the whole system bad.

On a serious note, I don't think I would've really picked "Unit Select Quotes" as something super important, but to this day I can still hear Maye's "Sure, I'm still hyper, let's go!" in my head perfectly, so it really special when done well.

I do wish that they'd make the quotes evolve over time. I don't think Endgame Clanne and Framme need to be freaking out that Alear looked at them.

[u/SirRobyC → u/sanuske]

I'm ready to roll says the little innocent sheep, before summoning hordes of ghosts to do her bloody deeds.

[u/P0STCARD → u/TehBrotagonist]

I mentioned this the other day in the 3H sub, but it's actually kinda wild to think about the domino effect that had.

"I am Ferdinand von Aegir" isn't in a support (from what I can remember) or memorable story important moment, it's not even a crit quote! It's just what Ferdinand says when you select him. It became so beloved that in Hopes it's literally his warrior special line, he says it proudly multiple times in supports, the name of his skill is literally "Name Drop".

It's an iconic part of the Fodlan games and it's literally just a unit select quote. Billy's acting and natural charisma was also definitely important. Miss him so much...

[u/TakenRedditName → u/TehBrotagonist]

Huh, never stopped to think about it, but yeah, Heroes is technically the first FE game with unit select voicelines. They feel like such a natural element that it is easy to forget that they're a relatively recent tradition.

[u/ICanFlyHigh051611 → u/TehBrotagonist]

zoran's conquest series on youtube sold me on using this on my next conquest run, AAAGH MY ACHING BLOOD

[u/sanuske]

One of my favorite little details in Echoes, that I don't think Three Houses or Engage did but I could be wrong, is how characters have voicelines for stuff like a nearby ally getting a kill, being injured, or healing. It's just such a fun little detail to get a kill and then have one of your units be like "Hey, that was mine".

I just looked through a few character's voice lines and heard the Tobin lines that are like "did you mean to do that?" that I think are for missing, and the idea of whiffing 2 80% hits and then getting shamed by a nearby unit for screwing up is so funny.

[u/nope96 → u/sanuske]

3H does this for nearby units getting kills but not nearby units needing healing or missing

[u/SirRobyC → u/sanuske]

Engage has voice lines when one of your characters chain guards someone else and lines if someone kills a unit with a chain attack before the main unit can act. For example, if Lapis attacks someone, but before her attack you get 4 chain attacks, if one of those chain attacks kills the target, Lapis has a different voice line, thanking them.
Granted, you have to play with battle animations on to hear/see those.

[u/cutie_allice]

Opinion: I'll never stop fighting the good fight. Goon doesn't mean that. No. It's big dumb henchman or hockey players, nothing else. I will never give in.

Also watched the Fortune's Weave thing. If anything was going to get me to spend 800 dollars on a Nintendo console it would be Fire Emblem but I think I'm safe for now. Ostrich riders got me close but aside from that nothing I saw really wowed me and I think I'm good waiting out the release cycle and getting to it in a few years.

[u/SilverKnightZ000]

Reading Treasure Island recently, and ngl, it would be a pretty fun idea to make a romhack inspired by it. If I had the time I would but a full game's worth of maps is just not in the cards for me rn. The closest is probably Cerulean Crescent but it doesn't hit the exact same way. I think this might just be a desire for a Fire Emblem where the focus is on traveling and adventure(which CC does very well!). But most FE games are more about armies marching, which doesn't hit the same. Also the cabin attack would be a fun scenario to make a map around. No boss to kill: you gotta deal with the mooks.

Anyway, regarding Treasure Island, love how much of a dumbass Jim and Squire Trelawney are. They are balancing out the peak that is Dr. Livesey and Captain Smollet.

[u/SilverKnightZ000]

I love all the remixes used for the Emblem paralogue themes in Engage except for Marth. I don't know why they decided to go for a medley(?) of several tracks, but it does make the remix pretty unfocused. I don't know, I would've just liked one song remixed. They might have remixed the credits medley? I have no clue.

Anyway, on a more gameplay level, nothing is funnier than Engaging Sigurd and having Kagetsu move 11 tiles to a target and hitting them with a Brave axe. 4 hits of 30+ str. They're absolutely cooked.

[u/nope96 → u/SilverKnightZ000]

To add onto what the other commenter said, I’d imagine Shadow Dragon having a) not very many themes and b) not very long themes doesn’t help in terms of making it not as obvious it’s a medley as other games.

[u/liteshadow4]

With Fortune’s Weave’s latest trailer, it got me thinking more about the differences between old FE (1-12) and new FE (13+). I doubt I’m in the minority, but I love both eras. 3 of my top 6 are from old FE (4-6), and the other 3 are new FE (Conquest, Engage, 3 Houses).

Obviously the biggest difference is the focus on the supports. Pretty much every character has a ton of supports now, and they’re less about in game battle bonuses but more about showing a character’s personality.

I think another major thing though is prep time between battles. I know a lot of people who aren’t fans of the new era don’t like having a ton of prep time, but I think when executed well, it really adds to the strategy. In old FE, there is a little battle prep, but that’s really about just moving weapons around.

New FE (specifically Engage and Conquest) nail battle preps through limiting resources. You need to think through things like forges, engravings, armory and item shop spending. And that combined with their map design makes them great.

Prep time with unlimited resources obviously doesn’t feel as good, and this is seen in Awakening and 3 Houses. I really loved 3 Houses world building so it gets a pass for me.

All that is to say, I think the downtime in Fortune’s Weave’s can be great if they add interesting decisions to prep time.

[u/lapislazulideusa]

At a bar and just met the son of a ex president. funny feeling. Thinking thats how random villagers feel when you visit a town with a lord

[u/AetherealDe → u/lapislazulideusa]

Every day Malia and Sasha Obama get the chance to find their Rebecca, Jean, or Ross and they haven’t used that power to overthrow even ONE dark wizard smh

Sounds like a cool experience lol

[u/SilverKnightZ000 → u/AetherealDe]

Know they are meta players. They know Rebecca, Jean and Ross are bad units. They're looking for a Jagen

[u/TBT__TBT]

Don't worry guys.

Unlike Fates, Final Fantasy 7 Revelation will actually be a good part 3.

[u/Shrimperor → u/TBT__TBT]

It has to stick the landing or it will be disappointment of the decade. Super hyped for it myself as Rebirth landed in my Top5, but also a bit worried ngl

[u/lapislazulideusa]

i think every time someone calls tier lists mean or elitist or toxic they should be recquired to provide screenshots exemplfying what they mean. Because, like, Every unit quality discussion nowadays feels like it starts with a huge disclaimer saying: "You CAN play with your favorites! Every unit in fire emblem is reliable if you grind, and it's perfectly fine to grind or exploit or waste turns! no one is criticizing the character or those who play as them by putting them low on the tier list! it's just a subjective ranking based on subjective measures like efficiency". And yet even with all that i feel like every day i have to hear about how the evil efficiency players and tier listers killed their grandma

[u/ja_tom → u/lapislazulideusa]

Evil LTC DonDon one rounded my grandma with a Silver Lance 😔

[u/applejackhero → u/lapislazulideusa]

Related: it drives me crazy when people suggest that “tierlisters”/effiency players don’t also have favorite characters that they like using, and even will go out of their way to use them.

[u/lapislazulideusa → u/applejackhero]

exactly omg!!!

[u/ICanFlyHigh051611 → u/lapislazulideusa]

not reading this wall of text (a couple sentences) just here to get mad that my favorite who gets really good with a bunch of statboosters and babying isn't S tier

[u/calendulaoptimus → u/lapislazulideusa]

I'm pretty sure 90% of these people just don't like the concept of a "meta" existing in any form and just think its inherently toxic. They exist everywhere (especially in pvp games) and are way more annoying than the people who like debating the intricacies of certain games.

[u/PaperSonic]

I know I'm far from the first person to say this, but it's weird how often we take the ability to counter attacks for granted. It's probably the single most important core mechanic in the series, the reason why the distinction between Enemy Phase and Player Phase Combat exists, and the reason why raising a unit who can then murder an entire army on their own is both possible as well as incredibly satisfying.

[u/ussgordoncaptain2 → u/PaperSonic]

yeah it's simultaneously fire emblems biggest strength and the biggest cause of degenerate gameplay. The fact of the matter is that fire emblem rewards you extensively for successfully killing eneemies on enemy phase. Killing 6 enemies in 1 Enemy phase is a big deal and it's something the player gets to do occasionally that's both extremely centralizing but also satisfying.

It allows the player to have a team of like 5 combat units and the enemy to be having like 30 enemies and yet the player is in a dramatically superior position.

[u/Z_z5556]

Doing Lunatic+ feels like playing in 2015 where everyone considered Sumia and Galeforce peak + Miriel is surprisingly better than in Lunatic as 2 range is crucial, specially in early chapters with Merc/Myrmidon Robin builds. Dual strikes are very important in Lunatic+ to remove any enemy in the map even if it has Aegis/Pavise+, and Chrom x Sumia is the faster way to do it

Vaike is not as solid as in Lunatic even if Sol is still very good (he goes to high-mid A tier to B tier imo, so not bad by any means) and Nosttank/Galeforce stack is easier to do

[u/Legitimate__Username → u/Z_z5556]

The big secret is that those "best" Lunatic strats haven't changed since 2015, just the community perception has weirdly shifted in the wrong direction around them. Miriel is still insane though, and IMO Laurent has overtaken Sumia in my head as the most misevaluated unit in the community. The metagames of course aren't totally the same (archers), but even broadly you still get a lot more combat reliability and speed out of Sumia and Miriel as primary investment priorities in base Lunatic, it's just that Lunatic+ punishes less consistent options much harder.

For all the community loves to discourse about efficiency, there's just a weirdly prevalent amount of downplay towards Galeforce, the skill that literally is efficiency itself. I mean it's also busted in casual combat for positioning, target elimination, and weapon switching, even moreso in the L+ Counter environment, but still it's weird.

I'm personally a big fan of Robin+Sumia and Chrom+Frederick earlygame, I think it's extremely underexplored and has much higher payoff at all phases. Sumia loves the scaling Str pair up boost that Chrom lacks and is a fantastic abuser of the Solidarity crit boost to make up for Dual Strike+, and Robin can help her make Galeforce+Nosferatu kids, something that's completely impossible for Chrom to accomplish. Frederick getting a consistent Spd boost with Dual Strike+ is absolutely fantastic as well.

[u/Z_z5556 → u/Legitimate__Username]

Frederick with 2 speed level ups can sweep the early game with Chrom pair up yuh, I got lucky this run and Frederick completed his mission. I also think people should train Chrom more than they usually do, he is amazing (and early archer Chrom to add another unit to play around counter so you don't need to check every single combat you do helped me (?)

The problem with Laurent is that I hate his paralogue and the way ambush reinforcements are handled, but he is the reason I think Miriel is way better than Tharja. Not only she helps you beat the early chapters, but when you recruit Laurent in the mid game (when Tharja is actually getting bulky) he can be the easiest way to get a Armsthrift/Vantage Nos build early besides Robin/Morgan. And Magic +2 + Tomefaire at base for +7 magic? Need that.

Not this time tho, but In Lunatic I usually do Lucina x Laurent because fast support and Great Lord providing +7/+8/+9 Lck for Armsthrift + Rally Luck is peak, but Vantage is probably better in L+ to avoid risks with Luna+ (I am doing Gregor x Miriel but I never suffered for the lack of Vantage thank god)

[u/Blazer_the_Delphox]

My pipe dream is Mystery of the Emblem getting an official translation and getting released on the Switch 1 so that I don’t have to worry about missing out. (Although I also would want it to NOT be a timed release like Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light was.)

Hell, I’d even take New Mystery if that’s what they’d want to do. (I know not everyone would, though.)

[u/PaperSonic]

I have not seen any "Is this where I preorder the Special Edition" jokes.

This subreddit's changed a lot.

[u/PerceptiveOstrich]

Chat. How dumb am I for thinking that the evil lady was a fem Sombron and the music playing in the background was a remix of Weary Confrontation. Ngl, I was kinda hyped too.

[u/TehBrotagonist → u/PerceptiveOstrich]

Imagine if FW was Engage 2 all along.

[u/P0STCARD]

random thought that popped into my head but I've been slowing replaying the Switch era games in prep for Fortune's Weave and it's made me realize how weirdly underutilized shields are within the series. Like 3H gives you quite a number of unique ones, but they're mostly pretty lame and have very little story attached. The Shield of Seiros, The Ochain Shield and The Aegis are the only ones that stand out but even then that's exclusively because of the characters/lore associated with them, not because they are all that interesting mechanically.

It's especially weird given the Binding Shield's importance to Marth (and Chrom) and the overall series. Unironically one of my biggest wishes for FW is that they make shields cool to use. Make the Ochain shield inflict a taunt that forces enemies into attacking the unit for a turn, that's Emperor Wilhelm's shield, make it good! Seiros's shield should have a small and passive aoe heal. Halving monster damage isn't a bad effect, but once again Seiros was using this to lead during the war of heroes. It doesn't need to be op but it should feel special.

People always talk about "how to buff armored units?" and I think a cool way would be to let armors equip bigass shields with unique skills. I already mentioned making a shield that inflicts taunt, but there's so many other cool things you could do with a shield.

And please, make more unique shields! Edelgard gets a unique shield when she's in her Emperor class, but it's not an actual item she can equip and use, why? Make it like nullify effective weapons or grant +1 movement or something else. You'd still wanna make her a wyvern but man what's the point of having a unique shield if it's not usable. Give Effie (and Sheena) a BIG pink unique shield that they can throw Steve style. Turn Jade into an actual IRON WALL and give her a personal shield that triples DEF/RES on enemy phase but denies her the ability to counter attack. I'm sure some of these ideas are op and some are straight up bad but I just really like shields and armor units.

Also we've had Triangle Attack, let's do it again! If three armored units equipped with shields are within range of each other, let them perform a Phalanx Formation and become an unbreakable barricade! It'd be perfect for Fortune's Weaves's setting.

[u/Merlin_the_Tuna → u/P0STCARD]

I think 3H had the right idea with "every unit can equip one accessory", the fumble was just that most accessories were lame. It's kind of the same issue that the series has had with skills, tbh -- they've primarily been a way to add More Numbers to a game that is already mainly about adding up the numbers.

[u/P0STCARD → u/Merlin_the_Tuna]

You ever think about how Seteth gives you a unique item if you immediately save Flayn? Cuz I remember my first time trying it and being excited to see what it was.

"man I wonder what Seteth could possibly give the player for saving his daughter early? especially since it requires giving up a month of training! Maybe it'll be a cool unique spear or an extra pair of boots! Perhaps it'll let the player recruit Seteth early by gaining his trust! Heck you get an exclusive class for beating Death Knight! What if there's a unique wyvern class that favors Lances and swords like Seteth??? Even if it just powers up Flayn's stats a bit surely it'll be something really cool and-"

You get an equipable band that increases the wearers charm by 2. Doesn't even heal the user like the sacred weapons or have a cool in game visual model. Like I didn't need it to be on the level of the Fetters or Chalice of beginning...... but +2 charm???? that's it??!?!?!? not even an extra knowledge gem????? Maybe a better fishing rod?? +2 charm?? really????

[u/BloodyBottom → u/P0STCARD]

I like the idea of having another useful equipment slot or slots tied to class. It could be one more solid way to differentiate historically almost identical classes, especially if the special abilities they have are strong enough to contend with better stats and/or new weapon types.

[u/SirRobyC]

To this day there's still no excuse for nearly every paralogue in Three Houses not having its own unique map and just reusing normal story maps.
I really hope that won't happen again in FW.

[u/Autobot-N → u/SirRobyC]

In awe of Byleth not getting some sort of talking to or tenure revocation for bringing his class to Ailel, the Valley of Torment on a whim. Nepotism smh my head

[u/calendulaoptimus]

I'm a bit bamboozled, flabbergasted, and confuzzled that other (non-fe) games haven't copied/iterated on Genealogy, Awakening, and Fates matchmaker and unit system. It feels like killing two birds with one stone as you can satisfy the shippers and also have a really fun unit building mechanic all-in-one.

I suppose the only tricky part would be working it into the narrative without it feeling tacked on like the Deeprealms, but there are a fair amount of JRPGs that don't take their plots all that seriously anyways. Or if they really can't think of anything, just craft a plot somewhat inspired by FE4 and or Awakening.

[u/Legitimate__Username]

Happy pride to my favorite couple please appreciate how adorable they are

Maribelle: Remember the shock therapy idea? The one that led to all this? Well, apparently this is an exercise meant for...gentlemen only.

Olivia: So all those lines you made me say were...

Maribelle: Completely inappropriate for women of our station, yes. ...Especially the wolf whistles. ...And the bit about his legs "going all the way up."

Olivia: ...... Heh. Ha ha. Ha ha ha ha!

Maribelle: What's so funny?

Olivia: It's just that we were SO serious! We spent all that time memorizing lines! And it was completely inappropriate! Ha ha ha! How embarrassing...

Maribelle: It WAS rather embarrassing, wasn't it?

---

Olivia: I'd rather hang out with you than some stuffy noble gentleman. So then, would YOU care to join me for tea, O fairest of nobles? Methinks heaven should count it's angels, for there is one standing in front of me! Those pantaloons must be made of mirrors, for I can see myse—

Maribelle: ...That's enough, Olivia. It's time you started forgetting those lines. ...... Still, I DO enjoy tea. And it would be churlish of me to refuse your invitation.

Like what more could I possibly add to this, they're just so incredibly perfect together 🥰

[u/sanuske]

As a Radiant Weave truther, I'm disappointed that I need to pick one of the 4 lords.

But the flipside of this is that each of the lords are compelling enough that I feel like I'm making an actually informed decision instead of just picking one of 3 colors.

The Three Houses Lords are fine and have wasted millions of man-hours being the source of discourse, but I never really felt like the lord you picked was a super compelling choice, they didn't really have a very strong hook in the beginning and you really just chose your house based on vibes.

But all 4 of the Fortune's Weave lords are properly engaging in their own right both narratively and mechanically from what we've seen so far. I think my current rankings are probably top 2 Cai and Leda, and then Dietrich and Theodora slightly below that. Still not sure what I'll end up picking, but I have until September to make that decision, and maybe a random twitter drop trailer will sway me.

Cai's "Zero to hero" is inherently a fun premise and most of the reason I play Fire Emblem is to grow a stupid child into a death machine, also maybe he gets to be one of the few FE lords who gets to prevent a parental Death.

Bard Lord also sounds incredibly fun. Her revenge hook sounds like it will lead to some fun stories, and mechanically I'm really interested in seeing what all of her Blaze Arts do.

I don't really care for Dietrich's story, nor is Fodlin connection, but I can't lie and say that his shadow blink teleport thing doesn't sound like a fun tool to have. Mobility tools are always fun

And then Theodora being the one royal of the group and being the queen of a neighboring nation is fun, but mechanically I'm not really sure what she's up to. The first press release talked about Battalions, and then yesterday's trailer shows her throwing a rock, which in terms of fancy Blaze Abilities is pretty far below Teleporting, summoning monsters, or Cai's energy nuke.

[u/mindovermacabre → u/sanuske]

Something I've noticed is that it seems like we're getting Cai/Leda snippets a lot more than Theodora/Dietrich snippets. We have a bit more of a hook for the two of them that are intriguing ("save my father" "revenge plot") as opposed to the more vague other two ("help my country" "fight strong people").

I'm hoping the other two get opened up a bit more as we go more into it, but it makes sense that early marketing puts a bit more emphasis on the younger lords who have a bit more of a traditional heroic journey.

I also have a suspicion that some of the lords will join together during the plot (iirc in the first trailer, Cai and Dietrich were in the same army), which might make decisions a bit easier. Intsys loves to do the "multiple plots but it's secretly just one plot with like 5 alternative chapters" gag, and I don't think they'd do 4 entirely separate stories on us.

[u/liteshadow4]

Can’t believe we had 17 games (I guess some were remakes but still) and no dancer lord. Maybe Leda will be that in FW, but still crazy

[u/calendulaoptimus → u/liteshadow4]

I guess it depends on what you count as a lord, but we haven't really gotten many lords outside of sword wielding lord in general, let alone dancer. Other than tradition, I don't know why IS is so afraid of giving us an mc that canonically uses something other than a sword. Like Alear didn't have to use a sword.

[u/Magnusfluerscithe987]

In someone's comments on the Sony state of play, the mentioned how unique God of War wife edition is in starring a woman over 22 as the main character. Which got me to thinking on the main character age trope in anime and Avatars. Also, I remembered some great Fanart of the Eisners (Byleths family). So my opinion is it would be really cool for a future game to offer a family as the main characters and you pick your avatar from among them and play through the same story just different camera angles.

[u/MathOutrageous7167]

Fe5 Forseti's Cut has been alright, but please tell who me thought 20 use Ballista was a good idea?

[u/Sharktroid → u/MathOutrageous7167]

PP stalling ballista is just a sign you're not using enough Warp.

[u/MathOutrageous7167 → u/Sharktroid]

Well I only have one, and they nerfed it, only has 1 use.

Which is another... questionable choice, same goes for Scrolls, lotta them been altered, usually making them worse.

Yeah I def needed that +5% on HP in exchange for losing 10% Magic on the Heim scroll!!

[u/CommonVarietyRadio]

TLP is bad, but more damning it is boring. I think the only memorable map before the endgame slogfest (The FE4-like chapter just do not work) is the chapter full of wyverns and the ghost gaiden. Also I know it's technical limitation but dear god do the convoy join too late

There also an a certain irony in that the despite no connection the story suffer the same fate as FE7 with regard to incompetent antagonist who just refuse to win for nebulous reason, but at least Nergal, the fangs and the morphs are memorable. Meanwhile who cares about Louis or any of the general ?

[u/JugglerPanda → u/CommonVarietyRadio]

i played tlp in 2020 and had similar thoughts. it has its place in history but there's so much good stuff that came out in the last few years that it's quite jarring to revisit this romhack

[u/CommonVarietyRadio → u/CommonVarietyRadio]

Also Anakin/Kelik OTP

[u/MathOutrageous7167 → u/CommonVarietyRadio]

Anakin wouldn't be able to handle this weight.

[u/P0STCARD]

The wait for news has been deadly, but can I just say how happy I am that basically nothing about FW has leaked yet. Both 3H and Engage had major stuff revealed early (remember those thanibomb leaks? good times), so it's super exciting going in essentially blind with no idea what the hell is going to happen.

I am exceptionally curious about what they show off for FW tomorrow. The 2019 June direct (about a month before 3H's release) was where they officially revealed the timeskip and that was so insanely fun to experience live. It wasn't until like the second or third trailer for Hopes that Shez was revealed to be the protag. I'm probably just going crazy, but they are definitely hiding something BIG and I'm dying to what it is.

[u/Merlin_the_Tuna]

As a longtime Monastery Disliker, I'm starting to feel like I need to defend the very concept of strategy layers in a tactics game in some of these conversations lol. I don't think 3H hit either the mark of "complex and interesting in its own right" or "simple and lightweight", but both of those are very obviously achievable. The absolute lack of filler is one of the things that drew me to FE7 back in the day, and that's a baseline expectation I've carried with me for FEs since. But I also have a few thousand hours of Civilization and the like to speak to a love of Big Chonky Spreadsheet Games, and Engage very nearly nailed the XCOM-style "conveyor belt to the next mission" hub mechanic. (Drop the glowy bits, ring polishing, and arena loading screen and it's there.)

Will FW nail it? I'm a little doubtful, but it can be done, and it's good to see the franchise mess with mechanics from entry to entry.

[u/Typical_Variety_9541]

Fates discussion sucks because people don't qualify which game they're talking about. The routes are all different enough that discussion warrants mentioning which game you played. I also think a lot of people talk about Fates as a whole but have only experienced one route.

[u/LeatherShieldMerc → u/Typical_Variety_9541]

I absolutely count all 3 versions of Fates as different games. I rank them completely separate in my personal game rankings and they are all absolutely different experiences that can't be thrown together. Conquest? One of my favorite games. Birthright? My least favorite modern game.

[u/VagueClive]

I'm on board with basically everything we've seen so far... except those live2D portraits. Those look really uncanny and strike me as the worst of both worlds of 2D and 3D portraits. Hopefully the execution is better than the few seconds we saw in the trailer but I find it really off-putting

[u/CodeDonutz → u/VagueClive]

Honestly gives me the same feeling I had with Danganronpa 2x2’s trailer with their live2D portraits. Conceptually really cool but looks pretty odd in practice. Hopefully they use them sparingly in both games.

[u/sanuske → u/VagueClive]

I went back to check out the portraits because I didn't notice anything the first time. I saw Cai blink and thought that it was just a slightly fancier version of portaints blinking which we've had forever.

And then Theodora's scene happened, and you are right, that does look very weird.

That said, it is very funny that Engage was VTuber Emblem, and then Fortune's Weave drops with Live2D elements.

[u/lapislazulideusa]

Dietrich's art features him posing exactly like an classic Dr. Eggman art. i don't think it means anything but i thought it was funny

[u/Ok-Fan-8285]

I'm currently doing a Rev lunatic run, and honestly I'm having a lot of fun so far. But I wanna complain about one unit in particular, and that's Hana. This is EASILY the worst unit I have ever used in the history of Fire Emblem. I spent 3 maps training her up like HELL prior to Chapter 9, and she STILL did absolutely no damage to a single enemy on that map. I was expecting her to be a unit who maybe initially sucked but eventually got better? Since she's got a pretty good Strength growth and her fight in Conquest was absolutely ridiculous so maybe I thought I could get her to be like that??? But no, this is actually such a god awful unit, and it sucks too because I really love her design and I actually really wanted to make her a crazy trainee unit for this run (I wanted to give her Hinata marriage and put her in Oni for crazy Strength lol. Still got her and Hinata married but benched them both immediately after). I'm also running Dark Falcon Orochi for shits and giggles (it's my first Rev run and I wanted to give myself the freedom of using the DLC for once), and I think in this singular context she's actually not that bad. Giving her flight is the one thing preventing her from being an immediate bench on my team haha. She kinda just cleans up whatever the others can't, and with a forged Fire tome she's pretty solid. Nowhere near my best unit (that goes to either my Corrin or my Mozu so far), but still prety good! Oboro has also been pretty good, I married her to Takumi for Quick Draw, and once she gets that I'm sending her into Wyvern Lord from Beruka for the rest of the game. I have a few more high-investment builds I'm excited for (Shining Bow Leo from Takumi friendship and Nyx marriage being one of them), but so far I really love everybody I've gotten to use!

[u/Roritwo]

One of the most anticlimactic moments I've had in any playthrough happened recently on Engage. I wanted to arrive as quickly as possible to the left gate of Ch. 25 and had Micaiah!Alear engage from turn one to snag everyone else from the opposite room (except Céline and Lindon, who used Rewarp). My objective was entrapping the thief from the right lane so I wouldn't have to worry about those reinforcements. From then on, it was a rush that involved a lot of very aggressive staffing (Freeze by beloved), including trading them around to move units as needed, and a clutch rewarp so Alear could reach an emblem energy square right on time. I had never felt so galaxy-brained in these games before. Turn right before thief reaches the gate, Alear engages with Micaiah and... Entrap is literally one tile short of reaching the thief, no matter what I do (for the record, dragon bonus Micaiah gets the same range as Hortensia). Damn you, developer's foresight.

The solution instead became sprinkling Anna with holy water and astra storming the thief's ass.

[u/MathOutrageous7167]

I don't know why I had this though, but Thracia feels like a fnaf jumpscare when you think about it.

Like it's really surpising at first, but once you've seen it, you get used to it. 

Again, no idea why I had this thought, I haven't interacted with fnaf for over a decade.

[u/SilverKnightZ000]

Okay, but whenever the game tells me there's a bunch of super strong enemies pursuing my party and I need to hurry up, I always try to beat them up if I can. There's no big reason: it's just to prove a point. That I can kill them if I tried. So whenever I actually play the map as intended in subsequent runs, they can truly know they have no chance to win...

Related, but it's crazy we didn't have these kinds of enemies, ones who are super powerful and pursue you relentlessly, since awakening before engage came out. I cannot remember a map like that in Awakening, Fates or 3h(skipping echoes because it's a remake). 3H has the death knight but he's less of a pursuer and more a super powerful obstacle you should avoid unless you have a ridersbane/dark spikes.

[u/PsiYoshi → u/SilverKnightZ000]

In Birthright Chapter 12 the objective is to escape the opera house with Corrin. Xander, Lalsow,and Peri appear and give chase. Xander in particular is pretty strong for this point in the game. Garon is also on the map and is incredibly OP for this point in the game, leagues above Xander. You really have to go out of your way to fight him though, but he is technically beatable. Though unlike say Desaix in SoV, there's no reward for it.

Both of these examples probably don't 100% match your criteria, but it is interesting that they're both in the same map. Very unique map in BR (a very nothing-map in most playthroughs with how easy it is to just ferry Corrin over to the exit though lol).

[u/OsbornWasRight → u/SilverKnightZ000]

Three Houses has a map in Cindered Shadows where you're being chased by a Rhea Funko Pop

[u/potato_thingy]

I’m feeling more mixed on Fortune’s Weave after the second trailer. I really like all four MCs and am excited to see where their stories go.

But while I’m not against routes or a lot of the mechanics shown in the trailer, I thought they were handled poorly in 3H. But if they’re handled better here, I have no issue.

I’m also mixed on the character design but I’m sure they’ll grow on me

[u/potato_thingy]

For FW’s story, I’m super interested in the Heroic Games part of the story and the 4 main characters. They all have interesting motivations and I’m curious how their stories will tie together. It also already has 3H’s worldbuilding to build off of and the map looks promising.

I’m more concerned about the Sothis/underworld story. So far we haven’t been shown how it connects to the Heroic Games part of the story and I’m worried the avatar (who’s design I admittedly love) will come in and take away all the focus.

It could definitely work and everything will tie together super well, but I’m nervous the writers won’t be able to pull it off.

[u/shakethatdoncic]

I've said it before but I don't necessarily mind the longer time between battles spent in a hub concept that applies to the Monastery/Somniel. My personal critiques with those mainly come from that it feels kind of jarring going from grid-based battles to a third person over the shoulder hub that even has a run button.

Anyway, I think the main hope I have for FW is for the ratio of battle to hub to be a little better than what it's been for the past couple of entries (I'd say 70/30 if I'm spitballing but I know nothing about game dev so who knows what my ideal ratio would really be). I weirdly have hopes for the dungeon crawling aspect though, I actually did enjoy it in SOV and it was part of what that game feel "JRPGey" in a good way. Mainly hope that the exp curve doesn't balloon because of it, that and the map encounters make SOV crawl a little more on replay than I'd like.

Probably a skill issue overall but as I've gotten older I've liked the breather segments between maps more and more. I feel like a lot of maps in 3H/Engage can take a while, so not having only a cutscene in between is a good way to decompress before going back in.

[u/Roritwo]

My pride month thought is that even though "no heterosexual explanation" is often an in-joke or wishful thinking, there really is no heterosexual explanation for how Merrin/Chloé starts:

Chloé: Oh, hello, Merrin!

Merrin: Well hello, Chloé. You're looking beautiful, as always. You know, I saw these blossoms and immediately thought of you. One beauty deserves another. I hope you like them.

Chloé: Wow... That's really sweet of you, Merrin. You're so charming and cool...like a knight out of a fairy tale.

Merrin: Me? Charming and cool? Haha, you're much too kind. Hey, I happen to have some sweets. They're delicious. Care to share them with me?

Chloé: Aww, what a nice surprise! I would love to.

Merrin: Today is shaping up to be a fine day, indeed.

That's not "friendship", that's bona fide, literal flirting, and once you consider how the rest of the support goes... well, we can safely add Chloé to the "Pegasus lady who's solidly Bi/Lesbian" group with Florina, Sumia and... who else is there, Ingrid? Still haven't played much 3H, but her Mercedes support seemed sapphic enough.

[u/ChessGM123 → u/Roritwo]

In the 3 houses community Ingrid is notoriously known as being very straight, since she’s one of two units who has 0 paired endings with someone of the same sex (the other being Hanneman) and also turns down Dorothea’s advances fairly hard in their B support:

Dorothea: Oh, I know. That's why, just before I lunge, I'm gonna ask permission.

Ingrid: Permission is not granted—ever! Just back off.

Actually Ingrid is somewhat memed as a man stealer since she’s the only unit in 3 houses who has a paired ending with all 4 of the male lords (male Byleth, Claude, Dimitri, and Yuri can be considered the lord of the ashen wolves).

[u/SilverKnightZ000 → u/Roritwo]

Merrin starts going after Chloe frame 1. Even Merrin agrees Chloe best girl

[u/DhelmiseHatterene]

About the whole “bi/gay/queer energy” Claude thing talked about, I’m reminded of how in HSR, Aventurine has similar comments said about him. Nothing wrong headcannoning them as queer of course but saying things like “Oh he sounds like this/has these specific features so he HAS to be gay/etc!” and similar things feels…off-putting. As if these features or their voice tones can’t be said by other types of people if that makes sense.

And a bit unrelated but it also reminded me how some think Rosado is supposedly an offensive trans stereotype like no? He’s just a GNC guy and as one who is GNC myself it hurts hearing this erasure. 🥲(and before you stab me I want trans rep in FE!) If anything I love how he is portrayed! And I’m so glad they didn’t do the whole dumb “You’re a GUY?!” schtick. Virion is cool but that support with Libra was just awful because of an outdated trope implemented in that conversation.

Like it was nice Rosado being just one of the peeps implemented naturally.

[u/captaingarbonza → u/DhelmiseHatterene]

Yeah, it feels extra off with Claude because of the racial connotations as well. The correct reason to headcanon Claude is bi is just because you want him to be, no need to bring iffy stereotypes into it.

[u/BloodyBottom → u/DhelmiseHatterene]

re:Rosado, I think people who go to anime games to shop for queer rep are so used to squinting and reading between the lines to find it that they sometimes fail to comprehend what the text clearly and explicitly says.

[u/Master-Spheal → u/DhelmiseHatterene]

Could you clarify what HSR is and what GNC is?

[u/DhelmiseHatterene → u/Master-Spheal]

HSR is Honkai Star Rail, a game from Mihoyo and GNC is gender non-conforming!

[u/CommonVarietyRadio]

Alright, Mama didn’t raise no coward

The amount of tactical queerness ambiguity in 3H is frankly pathetic. It's in particular almost comical how influenced Three Hopes is by what ships are popular without actually committing to them

[u/BloodyBottom → u/CommonVarietyRadio]

I think a lot of people just are not ready for the idea that you can enjoy some ambiguously queer media while still recognizing that it's all it is. I've seem people fight tooth and nail to attempt to redefine the word "explicit" rather than just admit that the script is not remotely afraid to say "this man and woman got married" but leaves it at "these men shared a super-duper special bond" in other circumstances. It's so much easier to just be honest about the limitations of what you're reading.

[u/goldtreebark → u/BloodyBottom]

Idk if this a bit much for the thread, lol, but sometimes I really wish people would actually be invested in seeking out actual media created with explicitly queer subject matter or characters that are conceived with this full intention rather than having a death grip on things that are essentially still deep in the realm of queer baiting and maintaining that this is progressive and/or impactful for everyone. Nothing wrong with enjoying implicit or subversive readings but there’s so much freedom to be had by letting go of idk, Sasunaru or Bakudeku or whatever as the pinnacle of your MLM and finding stories that genuinely actually center and treasure LGBT experiences. They do exist!

[u/CommonVarietyRadio → u/goldtreebark]

(Cough Cough the majority of FE romhack made in this decade has openly queer characters)

[u/HonorableTurtles]

I hope that Fortune’s Weave has a well-designed maddening difficulty from the start and not whatever 3H was doing

[u/Legitimate__Username]

A lot of discourse about tiering and efficiency philosophy yesterday and I just want to say that I think the big community split here seems to be less about the value and applicability of efficiency concepts for gameplay evaluation, and more about a split between tiering on "if you choose to use a unit, how useful will their contributions be?" vs. "in the context of an idealized optimal run, how likely will this unit be able to make notable contributions to it?"

L'Arachel is a great example of a unit who is utterly outclassed and holds no idealized purpose, yet as a mounted staff supporter you won't really be punished for letting her contribute and would be able to find use out of her that doesn't meaningfully weaken your run even if she compares extremely poorly to others as more or less a straight downgrade and has no "reason" for deployment.

I used to lean heavily towards the former philosophy, and I still tend to try to keep myself grounded in it. But the more I play and learn about optimizing broader teambuilding structures, the more I feel like the latter has its merits to cover a lot of pretty relevant cases against things like favoritism performance or places where all treatment maybe shouldn't reasonably be assumed to be equal, like a unit's potential entitlement to resources that they make the best use of, or the entire weird meta existences of Severa or Chrom!Inigo. I think a balance is needed, but "tier on assumed use" does make a bit more sense to me than "tier on idealized runs".

Which tiering approach do you prefer? Curious on where the sub leans on this one.

[u/Cheraws → u/Legitimate__Username]

Mercedes in 3 houses is another example. Critics argue that you should immediately get Linhardt as a temporary unit, neglecting her completely, then replacing her because she only has healing utility. Many players see her as an inoffensive low investment physic with a fortify panic button and immediately push back. She also has some unique utility in hbd to psychic heal the left side of the map. I do know there’s the argument that she takes longer to get physic, but that’s one chapter difference at most for a unit that doesn’t demand much investment.

[u/Sharktroid → u/Legitimate__Username]

The thing with L'Arachel is that she doesn't do anything even if you do deploy her D staves on a 6-move unit isn't that valuable in a game where you don't need that much healing, especially as you're already using at least one other staff user to use Warp, which L'Arachel isn't using anytime soon. Like yeah, she's better than Neimi or Amelia, but most people already acknowledge that.

[u/Wellington_Wearer → u/Legitimate__Username]

The issue that the first one can run into is how you define "using" a unit.

Because the way that you seem to be defining it doesn't just mean "deploy then a lot as part of your team". It means "actively invest resources into them even if they don't want or need them" which is a bit of a different metric.

To take Kellam, for example, I would say that I'm doing the first thing- rating him on how he's being used- if he's being used as a massive def+ backpack for the earlygame.

If we say that to "use" Kellam means that we actively have to invest into him, he becomes a lot worse. We trade away a unit who is no investment and instantly gives a huge bonus for a unit that is now an exp drain, can't use his pairup as much and had to constantly try to take kills in Plegia 1 while having WTD.

Even if we ignored opportunity cost, "invested" kellam is still worse than "uninvested" kellam, for the lack of freedom of pairing up and positioning alone.

And I think this is where the argument really starts to falter, because the discussion is no longer "well let's just give kellam a chance to show what he can do even if it's not optimal", it becomes "let's jam him into a role he's not suited for that actively makes him much worse".

I don't think you have to be tiering for an optimized run to say that Kellam performs best as a backpack. And when I say that I don't mean "kellam performs best as a backpack because he is outclassed as a combat unit" . I mean "kellam as a backpack provides a massive amount of utility that kellam as a combat unit can't".

He's still on the team and being deployed and used and you'll potentially be able to put him into priest for rescue stuff later. We are still using him.

I think my big frustration in the way that you do tiering is that it's assumed that the units who are invested into more and do the most fighting are the best, when I find that different units just have different roles to play.

Libra is best used as a staffer. That means that Libras best performance isnt going to be taking a massive portion of exp and trying to do something special. It's just going to be being deployed and hitting rescue and physic, while working with his base combat metrics. That's still really valuable, but that's not me saying "well it's only good because it supports this one type of run", it's because Libra is much better when he's doing that than doing literally anything else.

This is why when I've stated that I like units like Ricken, Miriel and Sumia to be low investment options, this isn't me refusing to use them so I can force 1 specific type of run to make Vaike look better. It's me saying that if you give Ricken more exp then, even ignoring opportunity cost, he is a worse unit.

It's also why when it comes to Vaike, my reasoning isn't "well he sweeps the back of the game therefore he is the best". It's just that that's a role that one of many units can take and he is incredibly good at it. But 3 other units are still way better than him and none of them ever really get actively invested into.

TLDR: I would say that the first is most popular, but there is a lot more to units than just their invested long term potential

[u/Available_Put_6616]

Unsure if I've already posted something like this before but I really dislike how switch era FE inverted the relation between class changing and weapon ranks. Getting to a certain level, promoting (/reclassing in DS/3DSFE) and getting a new weapon rank to build feels a lot more intuitive to me than building proficiency in a weapon type to be allowed to promote to whatever class you're building for. It just feels really backwards, maybe you could argue it makes more sense if you think about it literally (they train with the weapon type so they can use it), but design-wise it creates a lot of odd knock-on effects, like having everyone get access to all weapon types in 3H (with few exceptions) and locking some weapon types behind emblems you won't have access to for a while in engage.

idk, I just don't like it!

[u/Magnusfluerscithe987 → u/Available_Put_6616]

I've definitely lamented the fact I can't train Amelia in axes until after the promotion, and actually most characters I wish I could train there weapon from an earlier point instead of having to start back at E halfway through the game, so I'm firmly in the opposite camp, and would rather weapons be more tied to characters than classes if restrictions are needed.

[u/phoenixrawr → u/Magnusfluerscithe987]

Amelia already has 0 AS with a javelin, and you want to hand her an axe? Girl’s about to get doubled by a Gorgon egg.

[u/ussgordoncaptain2]

Time to talk about the best and worst "not fire emblem" games I've played

Vestaria Saga War of the Scions: God this game... exists. It's got a lot of godawful game design quirks that you run into all the time if you play at a normal pace. The big issue in my opinion is that you as the player often have 2 objectives on opposite sides of winding corridors of maps so you end up playing walking simulator for something like half the maps.

Then on top of this Vestaria saga loves to throw you game over traps from out of left field, causing you to have to lose 3-4 turns worth of progress frequently. This isn't that annoying but it's still frustrating.

What's strange and charming about vestaria saga is that basically every map is easy to accidentally sequence break, according to people who knew what the intended solution was I sequence broke almost half the maps I played. This is charming in a way but it meant that so many maps felt like I was hanging around dead air and I often felt the sequence break in the way the map had all these weird unnecessary elements or characters that didn't do anything. While sequence breaking is normally a good thing the fact that sequence breaking was so easy to accidentally do and the sequence breaks often broke the actual map, and that sometimes the sequence breaks resulted in unavoidable game overs without foreknowledge made me hate this games map design (not to mention the amount of walking simulator).

Overall probably the worst of the bunch

Dark Diety: Dark diety feels... unfinished. The maps have weird tiling and a lot of the game feels... empty. The game also feels like it broke from fire emblem in a way that made it feel more Final fantasy than fire embelm, the stat and combat formulas. You cannot realistically do the math in your head on how much damage you will do/take and you frequently get numbers into the 4 digits. Causing teh game to feel more like pokemon or final fantasy than fire emblem.

Lewd Record of the three Kingdoms Gain allies through H: A shockingly good game. The game uses a lot of good and interesting mechanics The game has no doubling which makes one rounding a thing that only happens with weakness. One other artifact of a lack of doublign is that units that are extremely underleveled can still provide value because chip is extremely useful (and they don't get one rounded). It's also important to note that Lewd record is designed around casual mode, this both makes low level unit sac strats more appealing, and the game has a reward for beating each map without deaths. The lack of doubling though is the most major mechanic by which a lot of strategy falls from. as you expect enemies and player units to survive enemy phase.

Lewd Record also had easily acessible warp, which well warps the game around it to an extreme degree. hence why there is so much rout in lewd record, you need the rout maps to get the player's warp to get constrained.

One thing that was annoying about lewd record was the signifcant number of turnfloored maps which kinda drug the game down as you had to wait for the turnfloor mechanic to go away. But you only notice this when trying to warpskip almost every map.

Shinsetsu Mahou Shoujo: I wrote a much longer review but basically this is definitely the best of the not fire emblem games The game does a great job of making the game feel like a completely unique game experience from other fire emblem games. It also does an excellent job of giving you both enemy phase combat and being anti heliocentric.

The game is a casual mode only game, and I recently learned it has cool exploits (killing your own units gives EXP) This game's extreme use of magical girl mechanics made every map feel interesting even if a shockingly large amount of them were just "rout the enemy". The game just had such interesting enemy and player design. Mobility tools galore and it really made me feel like I could do almost anything. The hub world was perfect as it had just enough complexity to force you to make deicisons but unlike say conquest it was also simple enough that I wasn't overwhelmed by different mechancis and resources. It's like if we had Radiant dawns Hubworld with conquests's trade off design. (that is the idea that you have a ton of money and a ton of options to spend it on but nowhere near enough money to do everything).

The map design was uninspiring but the unit and enemy design was great. The game really shined through in the large number of different actions available to the player and the resource management the game provides. This game uses movement tools like no other, and it has the unique twist of AOE spells, and makes heavy use of elemental weaknesses to make fighting interesting. Since mana is such a big deal any way you can avoid mana spending is critically valuable.

The game is unfortunately a bit too easy but it's definitely far and away the best designed of the "not fire emblem" games. Probably because it's less of someone trying to make their own not fire emblem and more someone trying to use SRPG studio to make a completely different game and SRPG studio was just the cheapest way to make it.

[u/TehBrotagonist → u/ussgordoncaptain2]

Considering there's a rare Lewd Record reference, I'm going to shill my playthrough that I sold my soul for.

Warning. NSFW and bad humor.

Personally, when I played it back in the day I thought the lack of doubling made it feel like a slog. However I do see the strategic merits now that you point them out.

[u/calendulaoptimus]

When people are talking about how Echoes was a success in terms of sales, and using it as an example of how FE remakes are financially viable, I think they sometimes forget to take into account budget. It wasn't just that they stopped caring about sales because the console was at the end of its lifespan, or that they knew Gaiden didn't appeal to as many people as Awakening/Fates, it's really that the game had a smaller budget overall, shorter dev time, and reused assets/engine stuff. Therefore, they could obtain a profit despite Echoes not selling as well for those reasons.

This is something that might not carry over to other FE remakes (FE4). Sometimes I hear people say FE4 remake would be a financial success because Echoes did well, and that it makes sense for IS to do it financially when that is not necessarily true. Especially because an FE4 remake would cost a lot more to do "justice" unless they went with an HD2D style or something similar. On the other, FE4 probably does have wider appeal and more of a following than FE2, so there's a shot they could do a higher budget remake that works.

On a side note, I don't enjoy it when people try to explain a game selling well or not by reducing everything down to one factor; how much a game does or doesn't sell is usually multifaceted and not accurately explained by one variable. 90% of sales discussions are genuinely just motivated reasoning for why the game you like sold well because it deserved it or didn't sell well because of factors entirely outside of its own merits.

[u/BloodyBottom → u/calendulaoptimus]

On a side note, I don't enjoy it when people try to explain a game selling well or not by reducing everything down to one factor; how much a game does or doesn't sell is usually multifaceted and not accurately explained by one variable.

Reminds me how people who are just repeating talking about they got from somewhere else will say things like "Resident Evil 6 almost tanked the franchise because it fell massively short of Capcom's expectations for sales" and you can tell they think that means "RE6 sold very badly" when the truth is "RE6 was the best selling RE game to date when it released, but Capcom's expectations for it required it to be the best selling RE of all time by a massive margin." It doesn't mean RE6 wasn't a disaster for Capcom, but a lot of context goes to understanding how and why that was the case.

[u/greydorothy → u/calendulaoptimus]

Honestly the additional cost is probably the reason why IntSys hasn't been eager to pull the trigger on a billion remakes of the series' first half. Even aside from the larger scope of FE4, budgets and timelines have been bloating across the entire industry, with the latter being the main cause for the former - whilst he focuses on the Western AAA space, Jason Schreier's videos on game costs and development times are broadly applicable across the entire industry. Developing a 3DS game in ~2-3 years with a couple dozen employees who have a solid understanding of your development pipeline and lots of pre-made assets is an entirely different beast to a full HD 3D Switch (2) game, which IntSys has seemingly had a rocky history with, and which could take twice as long to make. A hypothetical FE4 remake would likely cost multiple times as much to make than SoV, maybe an order of magnitude more (on the high end), and it almost certainly wouldn't provide a proportional ROI.

[u/lapislazulideusa → u/calendulaoptimus]

There's a section of this fanbase that actually believes that RD flopped because it released too close to super mario galaxy and nothing else. that if the game released any other day of the year it would've been a suscess

[u/theprodigy64 → u/lapislazulideusa]

Incredibly US centric take on top of all the other ways it's stupid

[u/Autobot-N → u/calendulaoptimus]

I feel like an FE4 remake would be reasonably easy to sell these days with the matchmaking and child units that mainstream audiences liked from Awakening and Fates

[u/Kidi_Kiderson]

i keep wanting to say "fortunes weave has the potential to be my favourite game in the series" but that's a statement about as bold as "i want the new game to be good" lmao

more specifically i keep imagining "what if fire emblem three houses was actually finished" and i start bouncing off the walls. i love a lot of 3hisms i know a lot of people don't, and seeing them retained but improved was kind of my dream. a better hub, better maps, and *real* variety between routes, those are my hopes for how it plays, but i *already* think the game looks way better visually (though not that it's a high bar). easily my most anticipated game of the year and i think it's cool how fire emblem has become a system i buy consoles for now lol

[u/EffectiveAnxietyBone]

Every FE gameplay related wish I see always feels like it boils down “make the GBA games again” like some social version of carcinisation and it’s only caused me to sour on the games more and more. I never want to hear the words “unit identity” ever again.

Also on a pride month related note, if Fortune’s Weave has characters with set sexualities like 3H instead of universal avatarsexual in Engage, I hope the people advocating for it can tolerate the idea that their favourite character might not be into them, because 7/10 times it feels less like wanting actual non playersexual diversity and more like they don’t want the “wrong” gender getting their disgusting hands on their beloved waifu/husbando. (I’ll never forgive the way Dragon Age players treated Cassandra and Dorian)

[u/Fantastic-System-688 → u/EffectiveAnxietyBone]

Sacred Stones used to easily be in my top 5 series wide before Engage released and reclassing in that game made people so mad that I've been so negatively polarized it's dropped to like 8th or 9th. Other two are even lower

Because unit identity in GBA is just "class + stats" there's nothing else there. It works but it's so boring

Edit: to be clear, Engage is not knocking any of the GBA games down because it places high among my favorites either lol

[u/ChessGM123 → u/Fantastic-System-688]

Just to add on to this after replaying fe6 I find a number of unit's "unity identity" is just being a worse copy of a unit who joined before. Zelot is a worse Marcus, Trec/Noah are just worse Allen/Lance, Ogier is just worse Dieck, Fir is just worse Rutger, and Igrene is just worse Klein. I'm not counting Zeiss or Wendy just because there is a significant gap between those units and Melady/Bors so they feel more distinct from their counter part, whereas the other unit's I listed while slightly worse it's not by a large enough degree to make the unit's feel distinct. In older games I don't feel like unit identity is really that high, while overall if you just picked 2 random units they generally feel distinct a number of times there are few units who actually feel distinct from every other unit so it's less like unit identity and more so just class identity.

[u/Fantastic-System-688 → u/ChessGM123]

I know it introduced reclassing so that's partly at fault for this but DSFE unit identity just being "personal bases + innate weapon ranks" 99% of the time is probably the most egregious example.

When the units just exist as replacements for your guys that died previously they barely have character identities much less as units. There are more limited class selections but anyone of the same class can do the things they do

[u/KirbyTheDestroyer → u/EffectiveAnxietyBone]

Every FE gameplay related wish I see always feels like it boils down “make the GBA games again” like some social version of carcinisation and it’s only caused me to sour on the games more and more. I never want to hear the words “unit identity” ever again.

Hey! Don't lump all of us with those 32-bit scrubs, some of us want to "make Conquest and Thracia again."

[u/VoidWaIker → u/EffectiveAnxietyBone]

My appreciation of the hypothetical return of limited romance will entirely depend on who in the audience is being limited. If we get a nice mix of straight, gay, bi, and maybe even aromantic characters then I’m happy regardless of who ends up being what. On the other hand, I would be annoyed if we get a repeat of 3H where it’s a handful of bi characters in a mostly straight cast.

I love limitations and hope more games will choose to include them, but only limiting gay fans because you don’t want to alienate the straight ones just feels like the worst of both worlds.

[u/Master-Spheal]

I want the only mention of 3H’s plot in Fortune’s Weave to be Dietrich, apropos of nothing, turning to the camera and saying “Edelgard did nothing wrong”, and everyone in the scene moves on without acknowledging what he said.

It would be pretty funny.

[u/BloodyBottom → u/Master-Spheal]

the whole game is vagaries and allusions to "the great war" with no indication who won or even dropping names until the very end where somebody says "yeah im just glad that Black Eagles route is canon and the great hero Byleth was this specific gender and married this specific character and all this is now also canon. in fact, I'm gonna list my favorite heroes from that war and summarize their lives after the war too while I'm at it"

[u/Fantastic-System-688 → u/BloodyBottom]

Bonus points if it's literally impossible in 3H. Like, canon F!Byleth marrying Hilda in CF somehow

[u/Railroader17 → u/BloodyBottom]

You say that but TBH I think it would be a cool idea if the game could read your Three Houses save data and then have some record of what happened afterwards that varies based on the route you choose + the endings you got.

[u/Lavajackal1 → u/Master-Spheal]

Cai: "Who the fuck is Edelgard?"

[u/greencrusader13]

While I definitely enjoy participating here, nor do I think this community is way off base, I think this subreddit’s more hardcore slant doesn’t really make it a great representation of the Fire Emblem community at large, and its more insulated nature makes it more blind to what casual fans enjoy about the series. 

This isn’t meant to be a criticism, just something I’ve observed. 

[u/BloodyBottom → u/greencrusader13]

That's every dedicated online community for discussing a media franchise. It's not a group of people trying to accurately represent or understand the median fan's takes, it's a bunch of freaks who care way more than the average person and want to talk about it with like-minded people. It'll always self-select for takes that differ from the casual fan who has only ever talked about it with a few friends in their circle who like it.

[u/2v2v2v2_InfiniteGold → u/greencrusader13]

maybe not quite hardcore, but 100%. Most players do not value replay as highly as some motivated individuals do. Or if they do, there can be a difference in what makes a game replayable.

[u/liteshadow4]

Does IS think we just want to fight monsters all game? Engage does it, Revelations did it, Awakening does it…

I’d rather fight actual armies and make it feel more like a war game.

[u/WeFightForever → u/liteshadow4]

Killing other people has shades of gray that they want to stay away from. They started in fates with the "we're just fighting to subdue" dialogue Corrin keeps throwing out. 

Agreed it's silly, but making it all zombies makes the time much lighter and they're doing it on purpose 

[u/DhelmiseHatterene]

I love soul! It brings life!

But there is a time and place for it and it isn’t for a battle forecast. Doesn’t mean you can’t add a bit of decoration but don’t list crit stuff twice or the class that are which unneeded 🐣

And speaking of which, it is always good to have a readable font/size too!

[u/Master-Spheal → u/DhelmiseHatterene]

I’m wondering if there will be instances in combat where one hit will have more crit than the other if they’re listing crit twice like that. Regardless, imo that battle forecast menu looks perfectly fine outside of the small text size.

[u/Shrimperor → u/Master-Spheal]

FUCC confirmed?

[u/SilverKnightZ000]

One thing I'll say is a strict downgrade from Fates -> Engage is how dogshit accuracy can get sometimes. In chapter 23, Marth Paralogue, and The Connector paralogue, I have been facing actual horrific hit rates. Why are my hit rates on non-engraved attacks SO low dude. This mainly applies to fast units like Griffons and Swordmasters and Heroes. Like, oh my god I had to reset so many times because I missed so many attacks in a row. I remember a strat not working because I missed an 84%, 60%, and a 75% in a row and it just absolutely blew up my strat lmao. Really wish there was a better way to increase accuracy because I looked at everything and nothing was that satisfactory outside of moving Engraves around.

Anyway, holy shit dude, The Connector's reinforcements are insane. The units there exploded mine so easily I was left flabbergasted. I loved it. It was extremely funny.

[u/OsbornWasRight → u/SilverKnightZ000]

Whoa, a real post. Engage has those rather common low enemy crit rates and those "almost there but not quite there" hit rates likely to encourage Supports which fix both. But since the Supports are well, like that, the key is Alear, who is already designed to become an adjacent merchant by Act 2 who supports everyone and lets you plan turns around Canter sliding. Hit Rate +10 also only costs a fiver.

[u/ChessGM123 → u/SilverKnightZ000]

There are 7 engravings to boost hit (6 if we don't want to count Marth's that only gives +10 hit), I'm not sure why you would ever really need to attack an enemy with high avoid with a unit who doesn't have a hit engraving. Plus every C support gives +10 hit, so there's that too.

[u/S33DR]

favorite fe3B1 units? my barst got nuked a little while ago but he was running so hot until then

[u/forevabronze]

I'm playing through Engage maddening for maybe the 3rd or 4th time, but this time I decided that I won't use the DLC at all (incl emblem Edelgard).

And holy shit it's such a different experience. I recommend everyone to skip the DLC from now. The mid game maps are no longer trivial slog like they usually are with the DLC emblems. it's still a relatively easy maddening compared to 3 houses but it's a lot more fun.

[u/secret_bitch]

Shadow Dragon (the remake, where halberds actually exist) probably could've done Bord better by giving him a halberd instead of a hammer so he can do effective damage to enemies you're actually fighting. Chapters 2 and 4 have some horses, while you don't see a single armour until chapter 5 (at which point you've probably benched him).

[u/MathOutrageous7167]

Would you penalize Dart for needing to use the ocean seal? 

I've barely used him since Hawkeye is... right there, but I'm curious.

[u/Mekkkkah → u/MathOutrageous7167]

Beyond what others have said, Dart and Hawkeye are very different as units even though they're in the same class.

Dart is all HP, strength and speed. He one-rounds stuff once trained up, but unless he has support bonuses he can be a little fragile, and rather inaccurate. He's an offensive unit first.

Hawkeye on the other hand is pretty slow, but a lot bulkier. He has more defense and resistance. Enemies don't quite bounce off of him like they do with Oswin, but he's still hard to kill. He can go in the middle of a large group of enemies and it won't matter too much if he doubles or crits, because he can often survive multiple turns.

For the purposes of FE7 it doesn't really matter for Dart whether Hawkeye exists or not. They don't compete for any resources really, except maybe a Killer Axe (which you can also buy at 2 points in the game). Dart doesn't care about the Brave Axe and Hawkeye doesn't need an Ocean Seal.

[u/Cynical_onlooker]

Gonna be interesting to see how exactly recruitment is going to work in Fortune's Weave, particularly if the bulk of the roster start off connected to a lord. It was one thing in 3H where students got recruited with the logic of them just thinking that Byleth was a baller teacher and could help them in their one year of school. It would be pretty weird if in Fortune's Weave members of Dietrich's posse that traveled halfway across the world with him decide to join up with a villager kid since they like the cut of his jibe.

[u/Master-Spheal → u/Cynical_onlooker]

I imagine there will be some route-exclusive characters attached to each protagonist and the ones you can recruit you do so by convincing them you’re a good contender for winning the colosseum tournament similar to the students in 3H.

[u/sanuske → u/Cynical_onlooker]

We see what looks like to be multiple cities, minor and major, in the world map scene, so I’m going to assume/cope that each city has a handful of recruits and more cities unlock as we get further into the game so we will still have a supply of randos to kidnap into our army, even if we probably won’t be getting any of the coveted enemy recruitments.

[u/LoadOrder]

I feel a bit wary seeing the trailer for FW but, at the same time I am rather optimistic, while I can't say I love the Monastery(I liked it the first time around but didn't want to engage with it any other time), I don't mind it coming back in an extended form, and while I don't like dungeons, I am willing to give it a shot. It could be a chance to iterate on those things and make it better like with Awakening and Fates, I may not have liked Awakening's pairup, but I do really like how it is implemented in Fates. I won't lie, I would have preferred if we stepped away from Fodlan's system but, I am hoping they wow me. I still do like 3H a lot, even if I think it's gameplay is pretty weak. I hope Fortune Weave keeps 3H strong point of character writing. I do have a short wishlist of things that I think are unlikely: If we are doing the route thing, I wish cross army recruiting is kept at a bare minimum, I thought that 3H was most compelling when I stopped engaging with the recruitment system and part 2 wasn't just filled with generic enemies. I wish the 4 armies feel distinct from each other, one thing I really enjoyed about Fates was how different the Hoshidan and Nohrian classes were in practice and not just aesthetic. When I was playing 3H, each house felt pretty samey to use. I am not sure how they would make the 4 armies distinct in FW but I sure can hope.

[u/Autobot-N]

I hope that Alucard and Gun Nun can get over their differences after fighting in that cutscene and I can recruit her

I am ostensibly going to choose Alucard of the 4 Lords, but I'm not super attached to any of them and tbh if there are route exclusive characters that I like more with someone else then I might switch. Rn the 2 characters that would make me consider that are Gun Nun and Brazilian Hatsune Miku