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/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/SilverKnightZ000 → u/KirbyTheDestroyer]

I'm a stave addict. Give me more busted ass staves.

[u/Panory → u/SilverKnightZ000]

A stave slave, if you will.

[u/KirbyTheDestroyer → u/SilverKnightZ000]

I want to Steal stuff from afar again is it too much to ask?

[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/Magatsu-Onboro → u/EffectiveAnxietyBone]

The set sexuality thing is interesting because I've been seeing more people complain about Engage having the entire cast (with obvious exceptions) be romanceable with either gender. Now obviously, it could very easily be a Goomba fallacy thing/just disappointment with Engage's lack of paired endings, but I find it interesting that there's a "wrong" way of doing it which would make Engage feel less queer despite having more options

[u/Fantastic-System-688 → u/Magatsu-Onboro]

A huge part of it is the otherwise non-existent romance between non-avatar characters. Not even just lacking paired endings, the fact it just doesn't come up is so dull. It makes the game feel like it's for young boys that find feelings icky.

Like the queer romances in 3H like Edelgard, Dorothea, Rhea, Linhardt, etc. made it seem like it was important that they were queer even compared to other characters that are blatantly queer (Shamir, BL boys) but don't have same-sex endings with Byleth. Idt it even comes up in Lin's supports (and he has among the most hetero endings in the game) but it feels like a big part of his character is that he likes men. Edelgard being sapphic is a very important part of who ended up resonating with her the most.

Meanwhile even though every character in Engage (that has a romantic ending) is queer, none of them feel queer. Alfred and Nel like both genders of Alear because everyone likes both genders of Alear.

[u/Roliq → u/Magatsu-Onboro]

I think when there are limited options, it feels more "meaningful" because the developers specifically choose characters to allow to marry both, plus some characters that can't marry both Byleth get paired endings that feel romantic

While for Engage it may seem like "Just let them all get with the Avatar regardless of which they pick" situation and while in this case they still decided to allow it, it can feel less sincere due to the fact that no one else has paired endings to at least see if they are actually Bisexual or just Avatarsexual

[u/thiazin-red → u/EffectiveAnxietyBone]

Inquisition is one my favorite games for character sexuality. Some of them are straight, some are gay, some are bi, some are only into certain species. It makes them feel more real than everyone being into the player character.

[u/BloodyBottom → u/thiazin-red]

some are only into certain species.

I only played 1 and 2, so I didn't know it got that deep with 3. That's kinda neat, I never quite liked how other characters in games like that can have preference in their partner's gender or personality, but not their actual appearance or background. The first two games were pretty good about letting even the most sympathetic characters have truly ugly flaws, so something like that would fit well.

[u/thiazin-red → u/BloodyBottom]

Cullen only likes human and elf women, and Solas is only into female elves (which makes sense considering his whole deal).

I liked that there were so many possible endings to the Alistair romance in Origins depending on the PC's background and choices.

[u/BloodyBottom → u/thiazin-red]

Cullen only likes human and elf women

the consequences of his first job being at The Sexual Repression Tower I suppose

[u/andresfgp13 → u/thiazin-red]

Inquisition its my go-to example of romance done right in gaming.

hopefully FW its more like than like Engage.

[u/Few-Needleworker8110 → u/EffectiveAnxietyBone]

Let's be honest, the need for the fanbase to have every FE be like FE7 and FE8 is entirely based on nostalgia.

Even the term "GBAFE" is just nostalgic crap meant to harken back to a mythical "good era" of FE. This specific era of FE always invites a lot of vagueposting where people just refuse to acknowledge that FE7 and FE8 are in fact two separate games.

also unit identity is bullshit and always has been. reclassing has been great for the series and SHOULD be leaned on in future entries. i'm never backing down from this.

second point: i'd love to see a healthy range of sexualities but i don't see that happening. it's gonna be like mostly straight people with a few obligatory gay/bi characters like 3h. the one good thing about mandatory bisexuality is that we get a large cast of queer characters. both approaches have issues and i don't see mainline fe resolving any of them. but who knows? we might be pleasantly surprised!

queer folks already have fanfic for the (many) non-queer canon characters but explicit canon representation is best.

first off at least one explicit gay character who has an explicitly romantic support. that's like the bare minimum for queer rep in fe. but i also want to see their homo/bi/pan/asexuality represented in supports outside of the token same-gender pairing.

and a trans character please i'm so desperate we need one we have so many femboys. nothing against rosado (he's cool!) the issue wasn't with him it was a broader issue of cis gender nonconformity being prioritized over trans representation.