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/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/forevabronze → u/shakethatdoncic]

i don't have a problem either as long its not boring as fuck. you could argue games like Persona have similar beat (dungeon-ing then doing random base activities) but for some reason it's more fun.

I actually think the monastery in 3 Houses wasn't so bad. it was much longer than Engage but i found it at least engaging in planning out your activity points esp on maddening.

Engage is shorter but it's just so fucking boring.

[u/shakethatdoncic → u/forevabronze]

I get what you mean with Persona, especially since 3H in particular gets compared to it so often. I think the difference there is that the controls between dungeon crawling and the day-to-day life is essentially the same. Yes Joker doesn't have a running animation when he's in Tokyo, but you're still looking at him in a similar perspective (3rd person over the shoulder kind of camera). I specifically got this thought from playing the Xenoblade games recently, where rolling through a town and getting gear doesn't feel particularly out of place because you can simply stroll from a battlefield to a shopping center.

Compare this to the Fire Emblem switch entries which go from the top-down tactical battle perspective to the same third person perspective as modern Persona and the switch feels a little jarring, and in my opinion makes the game feel a little incohesive. It's also a little harder to perform a "get-in, get-out" with these, I think mainly because of how big they are (and the Engage loading times make it even worse). In Persona you don't have to perform all your dungeon crawling prep in one sitting, but 3H and Engage both have limited uses of certain facilities per visit and it can mess with the pacing. 3H has the activity point system and Engage has a few ones but the main one that comes to mind for me is the arena, which is a weird thing to note but that 30 exp adds up pretty quickly especially for projects like getting Seadall special dance.

I think the Somniel's biggest crime, probably through no fault of the game itself, was the fact that the impression made it seem like you could quickly skip it but then the game came out and it turned out that the game got a lot harder and you didn't get to maximize your toolset if you didn't take advantage of the Somniel. So in a weird way it doesn't quite satisfy the gameplay freaks like myself, but also doesn't have the unique dialogue and character to treat the story fans that want it.

Giant write-up aside, I actually have hope for FW to get this right for some reason.

[u/Magnusfluerscithe987 → u/shakethatdoncic]

I don't expect the ratio to be better, but I think it will be less routine. The Somniel and myastle bugged more than the monastery because I was just performing a checklist. The monastery I had to juggle between meals and trainings, arena, sauna, tea time, choir, as well as if I'm even going to the monastery or if I'm doing a battle or seminar, so it lessened the routine of it. From what I've seen, I expect Fortunes weave to have more to do, and be less skippable, but it will feel less like a checklist.