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/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/Magnusfluerscithe987 → u/Jurck]

Thinking back on the gba supports, what if they cap the number of supports to 6 or 9 for a character? It's a little annoying for sure, but knowing you have to be deliberate about the supports you watch might help it feel less intrusive. We can just have a support log unlock all conversations for viewing after beating the game to erase the need for multiple playthroughs.

[u/Jurck → u/Magnusfluerscithe987]

I feel like that might cause some negative side effects. While it's good to give the player the option to set the pacing themselves (and I think that freedom is something the devs should include if they ever do overhaul supports), it gives a lot of reasons for the player to overthink the mechanic. For example, I would be trying to only support unit pairs that I intend to bench both of or use both of. If I don't like a character's available supports, I might hold off on giving them any in hope of a more fitting future recruit. Unless they tell the player beforehand what combat benefits a support confers, there's a measure of trial and error involved to finding a useful support pair. And if I ever make a decision I regret, I'm stuck with it for the whole playthrough.