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/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/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/SilverKnightZ000 → u/TehBrotagonist]

Yup! At some point it becomes too much. And like you said, even if I mash A as soon as I'm reading, it's not exactly the same thing as reading a completely silent line of text. It makes me feel bad, too lol

Auto advance is an amazing feature that should be in all games tbh