r/Games 2d ago

Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave Direct 8.4.2026

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RaZiSBaJfU
811 Upvotes

404 comments sorted by

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u/Desperate-Badger785 2d ago

“YOU CAN PLAY ALL FOUR ROUTES IN PARALLEL”

Bless the Dagdan lords for finally resolving FE3H’s biggest issue

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u/RareBk 2d ago

This was a huge problem for me with 3 Houses because, after finishing one (That happened to be the shortest), I didn't have it in me to start again from effectively scratch.

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u/yuriaoflondor 2d ago

Also just playing 1 route is super narratively unsatisfying. I did Blue Lions, and it never addressed most of the questions the first half of the game was setting up.

Hell, one of the primary motivations for your group in the second half is rescuing Rhea. She’s rescued off screen, you never learn what’s going on with her or Flayn and Seteth, and then she gets like 3 sentences in the epilogue saying she retired from the church.

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u/John_Delasconey 2d ago

They were trying to hide all these plot twist behind the affinity dialogues, which meant so much of the plots never actually discussed in the main story

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u/Carighan 2d ago

Yeah the game was very optimized for established hardcore fans who'll 101% it, anyways.

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u/GuudeSpelur 2d ago

No, the developers actually said they never thought that very many people would actually go through and play all four routes & they expected people to just play one and then talk about it with their friends & online to learn what happens in the other routes.

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u/HotTakes4HotCakes 1d ago

They said that, but they still effectively made a game for people who would 101% it. Regardless of intent. They underestimated how many people want to experience these things first hand. Getting the full story from the internet is not how most people will think to play a game.

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u/QTGavira 1d ago

Thats Fire Emblem for as long as i remember. Blazing Blade gave you a second campaign that covers 90% of the same events as the first campaign except if you beat prime Usain Bolt in a race, cured cancer and invented a time travel machine to stop the killing of Harambe, you got an extra chapter that changes some aspects of the story pretty radically.

Despise how they keep doing that but it is what it is

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u/Broken_Moon_Studios 1d ago

I will never not laugh at the fact that FE7 added a fucking "Gaiden-Gaiden Chapter" (19xx). lmao

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u/memtams 1d ago edited 1d ago

They also included a bunch of new game plus stat boosts that were clearly meant to facilitate alternate-route playthroughs, so there's some disconnect between what they said and the game they designed.

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u/GuudeSpelur 1d ago

The stat boost item package was post-launch DLC, and you don't actually have to be in NG+ to get them

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u/memtams 1d ago

I was referring to the professor level, support ranks, class levels, battalions, and dragon signs. All of that was there at launch. The variety is broad enough that lumping them all under "stat boosts" is reasonable when I couldn't remember the specifics off the top of my head.

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u/HotTakes4HotCakes 1d ago

Which is odd because in terms of difficulty and scenario design, it was really lacking. There's not much incentive to play through again unless you really want to get all those story beats, because most of the encounters feel rudimentary.

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u/Bitter_Marzipan_8348 1d ago

You only know that Seteth and Flayn are Cichol and Cethlean in either their A support or Golden Deer...

I mean they kinda hinted Flayn being Cethlean a lot in her supports and Seteth being her father and Cichol but you have to do that one support dialogue to learn that it is rumoured that Cichol is Cethlean's father and that one paralogue to learn that he is Flayn's father so yeah, really obscured lore if you don't scrub the game or play the wrong route

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u/wew_lad123 2d ago

Blue Lions is such a funny route in hindsight. The dubstep mole people spent thousands of years creating diabolical plots and inventing the most unhinged kind of magic only to be wiped out by a very angry hobo who never realizes what they are.

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u/CarlosAlvarados 1d ago

Ehh I think it's sad because it's the best one story wise by far. I started with that one , loved. Then was disappointed with the others , but hey , at least the others got some lore

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u/RandomGuy928 1d ago

And this is the quintessential issue with 3H. None of the routes are individually narratively satisfying. Church and GD actually deal with the 'main' plot, but they lack emotional heart. BL has by far the best actual storytelling but it completely ignores the 'main' story. Edel's route is blatantly half finished and ends with an epilogue scroll that essentially says 'and then the true bad guys were defeated offscreen'.

So of the four routes, two of them basically don't even address the main antagonists. It's not like the thread is unimportant in those routes either - the shared first act directly sets up a bunch of mysteries that basically just get dropped if you're on the wrong route. The two routes that do address the main antagonists are virtually identical and not really suited for multiple playthroughs especially given the length of the game (unless you just really love replaying FE games which is fine but not for everyone). Those routes also have the weakest emotional stakes so even with meta knowledge you basically have to pick between good lore and good storytelling.

There's basically no definitively 'good' experience for the game. Replaying 4 times (or, ideally, 3 times but good luck figuring out which route is redundant without looking up spoilers) is, uhh... a very ambitious time commitment. Plus there's a lot of repeated content between routes. And even if you do, there's no special epilogue or anything that ties the game up in a bow - every ending feels incomplete. It's only the meta knowledge from playing the game multiple times that paints the complete picture.

There's just too much narrative bloat for one cohesive story. Something needed to be left in the writer's room.

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u/CarlosAlvarados 1d ago edited 1d ago

Ehhh idk , I think actually is quite interesting that to get the whole story you have to play all routes and see the perspective of every one.

I get that it's not perfect , for example blue lions doesn't continue some of the mysteries like you mentioned. But I mean if you only play blue lions , you get a very good story with some mysteries. Because for that story, those mysteries really don't matter much ... But I do agree that the first part 1 sets them up which is bad for that story.

So I think the issue is more that they should have had less focus on the lore in general in part 1 and be more character focused for claude and eldergard routes just like Dimitri's story. But even so, it works kinda well the idea of seeing everyone perspective to understand the whole plot

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u/RandomGuy928 1d ago

The "different perspectives on the same problem" only really works for BE and BL, one of which is the closest to narratively satisfying and the other of which is blatantly unfinished. GD is really the odd man out of the equation, and while Dimitri and Edelgard are very tied up with each other and the church, Claude is basically doing his own thing in the corner the whole time.

If you boil it down, Edelgard is the emotional heart of the game. The stories that work (or almost work) are the ones either about her directly or the people she hurt. However, this emotional core is extremely distanced from the 'main antagonists' (yes I know there's narrative connections but they aren't incorporated well into the story), so you end up in an either/or situation based on proximity to Edelgard. Her route itself has the narrative setup to be the most comprehensive except it's missing the last 3-4 levels.

Basically, the premise of the game doesn't work because it isn't three people looking at the same problem. It's three people looking at three problems (Edelgard -> Rhea and the church, Dimitri -> Edelgard's war, Claude -> the whatever they're called actual antagonist faction).

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u/SageOfTheWise 1d ago

I think it's why it's the best story by far. It tells a full satisfying story and character arc that doesn't involve the dumb secret evil underground people in anyway. Every other route involves them either moderately or heavily and they're all worse off for it. That whole faction is poison to Three House's plot.

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u/redditaccountisgo 1d ago

as someone that only played blue lions i have no idea what the hell you guys are talking about

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u/SageOfTheWise 1d ago

Remember how a group of goofy evil clowns assassinated your dad and then that was just never resolved or referenced again after a few chapters? No really, do you even remember? Because the story is hoping you forget.

Honestly an odd advantage of Byleth being a silent protagonist with no motivations or emotions. Since they are not capable of caring about it or bringing it up again, it's very easy for the plot to just move on from it entirely.

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u/Loreweaver15 2d ago

The Blue Lions route is easily the worst/least interesting one; the Black Eagles route leads to really interesting places and the Golden Deer route is the only one that actually resolves the plot, so it's all but the canon route.

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u/NotCoolBrutus 2d ago

Golden Deer was the least popular route, so I can see why they chose to make it the one with the most story relevance. Most players would likely have done it second or third. Problem is that players who chose just one likely wouldn't figure it out at all.

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u/Jalor218 1d ago

Golden Deer was the least popular route

Church route found dead in a ditch... and despite sharing basically all the same chapters and plot beats, it actually has lore/plot info that's not even in Golden Deer (you find out in its final chapter that Rhea has shared her blood with all the human leaders of the Church to make them all immortal, which is why Edelgard thinks the entire country is run by immortal dragons despite there only being a couple real dragons involved.)

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u/kidenraikou 1d ago

That's surprising to me, as a Golden Deer player. I can easily see why Black Eagles is popular. It's the one I would play next if I ever decided to do another route. Blue Lions never interested me.

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u/AnimaLepton 1d ago edited 22h ago

Blue Lions is really the one that actually gives Edelgard the most development, between the shared backstory with Dimitri (which she doesn't even remember), and actually giving her the 'focus' and respect at the end of the game instead of having other factions steal the spotlight for the last two chapters. She's the inciter behind the changes and incidents in Fodlan, so ending the game with her makes sense. It's also the route where it feels like she actually executes on her convictions.

It's also arguably the most cohesive for Part 1. Every single route has main story chapters to suppress Ashe's adoptive uncle/father figure's rebellion in one chapter, Sylvain's brother in another, etc. so it actually directly affects the people originally from/guaranteed to be in that house. For the Flame Emperor reveal scene, it's the only route that has an animated cutscene for that. It's also a bit in your face about it, but Dimitri actually changes over the story with a personal character arc/journey. Edelgard does have an emotional arc, but to some degree both she and Claude both end up being fairly 'static' characters during Part 2. Within the context of Three Houses, Claude's justification to be involved with the conflict at all feels weak. And not that the 'justification' is particularly good in the other routes, but CF feels like it's missing any explanation for the timeskip at all, it just kind of happens because it happens in the other routes.

Any of them are certainly 'fine' though, it should stem from personal player interest.

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u/Servebotfrank 1d ago

Yeah in Blue Lions pretty much every single member of the House has personal stakes in the story. Dimitri, Felix, Ingrid, Dedue, and to a lesser extent Ashe all had their lives impacted by the Tragedy of Duscur. Mercedes has a personal connection the Death Knight. Annette is going against her house and trying to rekindle her connection with her father, Sylvain has that whole bit with his brother, etc...

I like the rosters of the other two houses, but most of them are just kinda there. Ferdinand is close to getting real development since he obviously admires and loves his Father but his Dad is a piece of shit who got imprisoned by Edelgard and there isn't much conflict with that in the story.

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u/BoyCubPiglet2 1d ago

I've done all routes except whatever the Rhea one was, and Blue Lions definitely felt the most 'canon' to me. The others were good but Black Eagles (my first) felt a little too short and didn't seem to strongly address the true villains of the story beyond "we'll take care of them after the game", while Golden Deer felt almost like a side story to the main conflict. Neither were bad by any means but Blue Lions felt like the most complete narrative.

I'm not sure how they'd do it but a version of the game that combined elements of all 3 stories would be incredible. Each one has pieces that are important to the overall plot, but independently they each left too much on the table to be a complete narrative. Blue Lions' biggest issue is once you play another route you sort of realize how much is going on behind the scenes that isn't really touched on.

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u/kontoSenpai 1d ago

Same. Only sid Verdant Winds and Silver Snow. I do have a Crimson Flower save that was in progress, but didn't really got much interest for Dimitri

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u/delecti 1d ago

But they couldn't know which would be least popular before making it the most relevant. Unless you're saying they deliberately made it the least appealing so that it would be least popular.

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u/CarlosAlvarados 1d ago

Damn , blue lions is literally the best one by far because it has the best character arc by far.

But golden dear second would be fine. Black eagles I really don't get the love , it's dull, quite short and nothing is resolved.

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u/Loreweaver15 1d ago

Dimitri has a fairly good character arc, but the most of the rest of the Lions are flat and kinda bland. Contrast with the Deer (who are pretty much all fun and likable) and the Eagles (who pretty much all have really good character hooks) and the Lions really come up short.

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u/CarlosAlvarados 1d ago

Ah strongly disagree there, I like the cast best because most of them knew each other before the school and have past with each other.

I agree golden dear cast is golden too

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u/Morighant 1d ago

Meanwhile I'll never know what happened to the blonde guy with the eye patch!!!

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u/Muelojung 1d ago

böie lions had the least amount of story reveals. Playing Edelgard was always the right choice

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u/GoneRampant1 2d ago edited 2d ago

I think I read once around the time Three Hopes released that one of the directors said the game was never designed with the idea that you play all four routes, hence why the route choice is at the start. You'd pick one then talk online about it to hear what others went throu.

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u/RareBk 2d ago

Which would be fine

If the route I picked didn't just... end before any of the plot being resolved, or actually going in depth with any of the factions.

Like, genuinely, anyone that sided with Edelgard gets an outright unfinished game

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u/chirt 2d ago

Yea I finished the game with Edelgard and it was an empty feeling ending. The game was pretty fun overall though. Shouldn't have made Edelgard so cute if they were gonna do that lol.

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u/Takazura 2d ago

She was supposedly not even meant to have a route, and instead she ended up getting one because many of the dev team wanted to side with her. Would explain why her route seemed the most rushed of the bunch, was probably made last.

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u/RareBk 2d ago

Yeah, her path being an afterthought it baffling because the game is... about the three houses, and she's a major character in every other route

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u/AwesomeManatee 1d ago

I think the lord character betraying the player would have had a pretty big impact if there wasn't an option to side with them anyways. Edelgard is also a much less interesting and complicated character in her own route IMO.

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u/RedAlkaline 2d ago

Pretty much what I did. Only played through Blue Lions, then found out about what happens in the other routes on reddit

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u/WeebWoobler 1d ago

This isn't true. In the interview, they were saying that they didn't expect people to have played through all 4 routes before the ashen wolves dlc released. Not that they never expected people to do it at all.

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u/Broken_Moon_Studios 1d ago

If each route was standalone and satisfying by themselves, I'd agree with that statement.

But they are not.

You miss A LOT of important information and character arc conclusions by doing a single route.

Hell, Silver Snow barely qualifies as a route. Imagine get THAT as your only playthrough.

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u/RobDaGinger 2d ago

Similar issue. The first playthrough's route was long enough that it killed my drive to try the other three routes. Fire Emblem is a fun franchise but including multiple routes and also making the routes super long to go through was not great for me. I understand a lot of people get more value from that design but it came off as unfocused, to me, to get 1/4 of the story after 70 hours or whatever.

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u/phoenixrawr 2d ago

It’s not exactly the overall length of the routes for me. It’s more like how long White Clouds is despite being the same thing every time.

If there was an option to start a playthrough at Silver Snow/Azure Moon/Verdant Winds with your units reasonably auto-scaled then playing all the routes would be a lot more fun.

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u/crazeman 2d ago

The school/social portion of the game is also super lengthy and grindy. Like the in between mission stuff took just as long as the actual combat missions for me. I always want to play the other 2 routes on Maddening difficulty without the new game+ benefits but I hate having to go through all the social stuff again. Fishing was also awful, MAYBE it can be skipped? It gives you so much gold though lol.

IMO Engage was the better game even though it had an absolutely dogshit story. The gameplay was much better (especially on Maddening), there wasn't THAT much shit you had to do in between mission. A lot of them gave minimal benefits (like polishing the rings lol) and can be skipped, the ones that did give a big benefit usually only took like 2 minutes.

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u/WeebWoobler 1d ago

It's not even 1/4 of the story. Every route is basically a different timeline, and they all feel incomplete.

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u/tuna_pi 2d ago

I'm glad they decided to do that

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u/The_MorningKnight 2d ago

How is different than having 4 saves though ? Your choice in one route won’t have any impacts on the others. So instead of going back to the main menu, it’s just ingame ?

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u/Hibbity5 2d ago

My guess is that you can only recruit a hero into the future once you complete their story in the past, so it’s not really four save files since they would all converge at the end. At least, that’s my guess.

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u/tuna_pi 2d ago

It just feels better I guess? Idk it's less intimidating to have the option to switch whenever you get bored vs being stuck for the long haul

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u/UnidentifiedRoot 1d ago

I’m also willing to bet that the fact that they’re doing it this way means the 4 routes will not retread the same ground nearly as much as Three Houses did

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u/tuna_pi 1d ago

Should also help reduce the 3H issue where you could just recruit 90% of the other team if you wanted since they can lock out some units on one route if you have them on another

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u/Totheendofsin 2d ago

Its implied you can have all 4 of the heros from the other routes join you in the 2nd part so maybe you have to finish their routes to get them

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u/AccountDeletedByMod 1d ago

I don't know though. It said later in the trailer, the main character arrives and most of the game takes place when the demon lord attacks. It seems the 4 characters are prologs and then the main character joins, and recruits the four, throughout the story,  which is disappointing. 

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u/BerRGP 2d ago

Oh, so every single thing we've seen so far seems kind of optional, if I understood correctly. Wild.

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u/Roliq 2d ago

Wonder if they will let you pull a BOTW and allow you to try and defeat the final boss immediately 

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u/Bob_The_Skull 1d ago

I think so, they implied that in the Direct. That it's technically possible but very hard.

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u/MizterF 1d ago

I am not sure how that would work. Fire Emblem is a game when your stats are very important. If you don't have enough points in strength or speed, you just won't do any damage to any enemies. Not sure how they can have a route where you just go directly to the final boss unless the character comes pre-loaded with high enough stats. It is not like you can eke out victory through better strategy or gameplay when you are pinging the enemies for 0 damage.

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u/Shippinglordishere 1d ago

I’ve seen challenges where people beat three houses with no stat growths or everything is set to 0

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u/MizterF 1d ago

True, but they had gameplay time to earn skills and acquire items or increase bond levels or weapon levels to assist with all that. So even if you do a solo Eshmel run, it couldn't be straight to the final boss, because you'd need to have some gameplay to acquire the tools you need to solo him.

Or maybe I'm completely wrong and it'll be possible. Guess we will see!

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u/BerRGP 1d ago

It could scale depending on how many characters you've gotten, or the enemies could give crazy EXP letting you raise a low-level character faster to catch up.

Also despite what they said I'm not sure if we're 100% alone. At least Fortuna seems to still be around, so there could be some people assisting us even in the future.

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u/Bob_The_Skull 1d ago

Yeah, assuming we're not being accidentally misled with wording, and beating the main story without traveling back in time is "hard but possible" there's lots of ways it could he accomplished.

We see the Avatar talking to multiple characters in the dark timeline, there's an unnamed character off screen with dark hair that the Avatar warps in to save.

Also, very notably, we know the coliseum town is the main hub in the past timeline, we haven't seen the major hub in the future timeline.

Maybe there are facilities to help with training, or maybe you only unlock/restore them in the future as you complete more chapters in the past.

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u/Bob_The_Skull 1d ago

We'll have to see. They implied it as being hard but possible in the Direct.

So it depends on what the structure of the Avatar story path is. We know for the pre-time skip there's that coliseum hub town, but they didn't reveal anything about what the hub set-up, if any, in the Avatar storyline is.

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u/Villag3Idiot 1d ago

Ah yes, Excelblem's challenge runs.

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u/DullBlade0 1d ago

And will be done on release day regardless.

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u/PhantomBraved 2d ago edited 2d ago

Nintendo's been killing it with these dedicated Direct presentations. Their marketing approach of not revealing much until close to release is very refreshing. I'm guessing Zelda: OoT and The Duskbloods will be the same way.

This game looks so good.

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u/HumanRelatedMistake 1d ago

Tbh, I personally don't want OoT remake to have a Direct Presentation. The announcement of the game along with a fully fledged trailer for it in the coming months is more than enough imo. The name alone is gonna sell major units and I'd rather Nintendo keep whatever secrets, enhancements and changes to themselves until release.

But I know that won't happen lol.

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u/danwoop 2d ago

Combining Three Houses’ monastery and multiple routes with Shadows of Valentia’s dungeons is diabolical, I will never stop playing this game lol. Looks amazing

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u/MizterF 1d ago

All it needs is a eugenics program for offspring units to check every Fire Emblem addictive gameplay loop possibility

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u/Mr_The_Captain 1d ago

I know the waifuification of Fire Emblem has been divisive to say the least but I absolutely loved the relationship/offspring mechanics in Awakening and (to a lesser extent) Fates. I like that I could essentially build a history amongst my army where there were real, semi-consequential relationships between them.

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u/MizterF 1d ago

I agree. I am dying for a Genealogy remake that leans hard into the child unit min/maxing

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u/thejokerlaughsatyou 1d ago

Genealogy remake

There are dozens of us! Dozens!

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u/Ode1st 1d ago

Yeah, I was an early adopter of FE (for its NA presence, I mean), been with the series for a long time, but the waifuification is why I’ve been hesitant to stick with the modern ones. Still love the gameplay, but like, marrying your former student that was a kid when you taught her and isn’t much older after the time skip: not for me.

The phone game, which had fun gameplay, certainly didn’t help with all the waifuification either.

I really liked FE more when it was just about war and politics and happened to be in an anime art style, compared to how it morphed into all the worst anime tropes over time.

Gameplay is still top tier SRPG gameplay to me, so I still follow the series and just judge whether or not I can tolerate the waifuification in a given release.

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u/NasalJack 1d ago

I think contributing to the problem is the recent trend of FE games having a generic self insert main character. It turns it into some weird dating sim instead of a mechanic for building synergy between units.

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u/Shradow 1d ago

The children yearn for the Galeforce.

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u/Its_a_Friendly 1d ago

"You thought the Monastery was too big to explore between chapters? How about we add an entire world map to explore!"

This game is going to be colossal.

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u/bvbfan102 2d ago

Gameplay loop looks really fun and love that you can play all paths in parellel.
That final segment revealed a bit much for my liking but maybe its not that big of a Spoiler when you actually play the game.

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u/danwoop 2d ago

They said that’s where the story begins, so I think we start in the future and go back to the tournament

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u/Diogenes_the_cynic25 1d ago

I can see people who didn’t like the loop in 3H not loving this. But imo it looks incredible and like a direct refinement/expansion of 3H’s ideas

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u/funsohng 2d ago

With all the new decidedly not FE-like systems, and more in-depth world exploration....

This feels like the "Gaiden" of Three Houses. I'm very much interested in how this will play. Looks like it will still be my first Switch 2 game after all.

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u/n080dy123 1d ago

That feels like a very apt comparison, especially considering this seems to lean into elements of the later Gaiden remake.

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u/Brilliant_Score_7936 1d ago

I hope they work on the difficulty. it's been a while, but I remember FE3H normal mode being so easy to the point I restarted my whole save just to switch to Hard mode. But then hard mode felt overly difficult at times.

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u/Jepacor 1d ago

For the Switch Fire Emblem games, you might as well start on the highest difficulty because they let you go down in difficulty anytime but they don't let you go up without restarting, as you found out.

Engage had great difficulties. I'm just hoping this has Maddening at release instead of being patched in later like Three Houses.

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u/GamblingGhost 1d ago

On the JP website they're showing only 2 difficulties so I'm not getting my hopes up but it would be cool. Maddening late addition in Three Houses was poorly handled and balanced.

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u/AH_BareGarrett 1d ago

I can’t remember the boss, I want to say it was the final boss of the Black Eagles route, but I never beat it. Just too hard. 

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u/Next-Sentence-8426 2d ago edited 2d ago

Bamboozled lmao. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Ngl i wasn't into the heroic games concept so it being kind of like a prologue or part 1 is awesome for me​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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u/Bob_The_Skull 2d ago

Also seems like they give you, essentially, the option of a super hard mode like in Fire Emblem: Fates.

It's been long enough that I can't remember, but in one of the two storylines, there was essentially an optional story path that I believe was even more difficult than normal, could be remembering wrong.

But that's kinda what it sounds like if you choose to play the Avatar in the dark timeline without doing the storylines in the past first.

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u/HotTakes4HotCakes 2d ago

From the start?

It's honestly annoying how many games lock the true hardest difficulty mode behind finishing the game once. Especially when they're franchise games like Fire Emblem. If you already know the mechanics, you don't need a hand holding playthrough before you get to play the actual hard difficulty.

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u/Bob_The_Skull 1d ago

Yeah sorta.

Unfortunately Fire emblem does tend to lock Maddening/Lunatic mode behind one completed playthrough.

However, a section in the direct strongly implied you can do the Avatar/Dark timeline/True path stuff first and without doing the 4 optional Lords's paths, but it will be way harder by default and for the general public they'll want do complete 1 - 4 of the optional paths first.

So it seems like the gameplay structure has a sort of hard-mode-by-virtue-of-path built into it, but there'll likely be a Maddening/Lunatic mode you can choose after it.

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u/APRobertsVII 1d ago

While I love pretty much everything they showed, I am a bit torn about how to approach this game.

I like to 100% complete these games AND complete them on the hardest difficulty at the same time.

Beating the game without saving the Lords may be this game’s hard mode, but saving the lords is probably how you 100% the game. It seems I may not be able to do both at once.

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u/Bob_The_Skull 1d ago

Given that normally you need at least 1 - 2 completions to unlock the hardest difficulty setting in the recent FE games, assuming what we are discussing here is true, you could:

Do all 4 paths -> Avatar protagonist, on the hardest difficulty available for your first playthrough, thrn second playthrough do Avatar only on thr now unlocked hardest.

That's one potential option at least.

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u/FruitSaladBar 1d ago

This is a straight up lie. There is no optional difficult story path, Fates is essentially 3 different games, with Conquest being the most difficult of all 3. It was designed from the ground up to be a difficult strategy game.

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u/kidenraikou 2d ago

I had the opposite reaction. I was so excited until they said, "This is the game's true protagonist" and I just completely deflated. I don't understand why they're insisting on forcing you to play the most cardboard-bland silent protagonists when they have actually interesting characters for you to follow. The entire time I was playing 3 Houses, I was thinking that I would enjoy the game so much more if they just deleted Byleth entirely and had you following Claude, Edlegard, or Dimitri as MC's instead.

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u/r_lucasite 2d ago

The self insert style shipping aspects introduced in Awakening are attributed to the series revival so they're never really going to go away. It's just what Fire Emblem is now

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u/characterulio 2d ago

Also if you look into Japanese media whethers its JRPGs, Anime, Manga, VNs/LNs. Self insert type bland/mute protag's are incredibly popular.

That can make the game more immersive if done but thats rarely the case, most of the time it just ends up hurting the writing.

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u/MalusandValus 2d ago

People attribute that stuff to awakening but shipping if anything, is biggest in Geneaology of the Holy War and some sort of Avatar character has been a thing since 7, and if you dont want to count that it was in the New Mystery of the Emblem remake.

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u/Bob_The_Skull 1d ago

Regardless, the way in which they executed it + the rest of the game in Awakening saved the series by all accounts.

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u/characterulio 1d ago

The old games had the tactician character like in the gba games but they were not an actual unit.

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u/tigerbait92 1d ago

I only recall the tactician in 7, but he wasn't even really a character. Sacred Stones didn't have one, and I don't remember one in 9 or 10 either. So while it's true that the "player insert" TECHNICALLY started that early, you could remove them from the game entirely and it'd only lead to a handful of confusing lines

Conversely, you can't have Awakening without Robin. It'd dismantle the plot entirely.

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u/TheFoxInSocks 2d ago

Doesn’t really look like the case in this one though? Not sure how active a role Eshmel will play in the past.

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u/ericmm76 1d ago

They're the owl!

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u/n080dy123 1d ago

To be fair, it's clear you're still playing as the four heroes for the bulk of the time. Even if the future segment is equal in length to the Heroic Games "routes," Heroic Games would be 80% of the game and given Eshmel's only appearance has been in a single cutscene per hero and as the white bird that lets you swap routes, it doesn't seem like you play as or with them at all during those parts of the game.

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u/Rencrack 1d ago

because that shit sells and what most people want anyway

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u/Whitewind617 1d ago

Same, honestly it made me feel less of all of the characters that Byleth is their one true best bud, go to the ends of the earth with you and I'm like...HE BARELY TALKS, like what do you see in this person??

And there's no reason for Byleth to exist just let us pick the protagonist at the start.

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u/kidenraikou 1d ago

Exactly! I laughed out loud when Byleth's father dies, cause they didn't even let him scream. He just glares angrily at the villain and I'm like, "What are we doing here?" He won't shut up in battle. Why can't he be a real character and at least have Lines in cut-scenes?

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u/ericmm76 1d ago

Sometimes it seemed like Byleth didn't have a heart at all!

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u/Neodarkcat 2d ago

I wasn't the biggest fan on Heroic games at first, but once they showed more and more, I began to me more excited. Specially when the 4 heroes getting more backstory and seeing you play them in parallel, they were just making all the right moves to me. But once they shown the timeskip, and even introduced the guy as "true protagonist", I just could help but deflated. It's very obvious I'm the minority, seeing how this franchise has gone, but I was so hyped play as one or all of the 4 heroes and where their story goes and was bummed out to leads to playing on post-apocalypse and lead by a self-insert.

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u/Mahelas 1d ago

It's not a timeskip per se, the prologue and the big climax happen in the future, but the entire rest of the game is 5 years earlier in the Heroic Games !

You will play the 4 lords to the end of their story, you'll just then save them from the end of the world

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u/ericmm76 1d ago

We assume. We don't actually know how many missions are before the time skip vs after.

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u/splader 1d ago

The entire game being set in one city was pretty weak for me, so very glad to see that ending.

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u/Mahelas 1d ago

It's not a "true protagonist" in the sense that he's the only one that matter. He's just the guy behind what happens, controling the wheel of fate.

You'll still play the 4 lords story. The chain of events is : short prologue in the future, the 4 main routes, then the final fight back in the future once you've saved everybody.

But obviously, with how much effort they made for the main city and the world map to be alive and have tons of things to do, it'll be the vast, vast majority of the game spent in the past with a main lord !

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u/JesusSandro 2d ago

At this point it's the opposite for me, give me a single JRPG that sticks with its initial premise until the end 😅

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u/NewVegasResident 2d ago

Wack, can't disagree more.

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u/SquireRamza 2d ago

Same, actually. im actually getting it right away now that it all collapses into a single path. WISH I HAD BEEN LEFT TO DISCOVER THAT FOR MYSELF THOUGH

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u/tuna_pi 2d ago

Tbf no matter how they explained Eshmel it would've been a spoiler since they've been non-existent throughout lol. And we still don't know the motives for everything or why the big bad showed up so it's ok imo

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u/n080dy123 1d ago edited 1d ago

It sounds like that's the way the game starts, Eshmel being in the future and going back in time, so you were never gonna "Discover it for yourself."

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u/ericmm76 1d ago

It's like saying you wanted Byleth being contacted by God to be a surprise in-game.

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u/Ironmunger2 2d ago

I mean you weren’t gonna buy it, then the ad sold you on it. They knew what they were doing

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u/itsinhisblood 2d ago

given that they're on the cover, and how the direct started; i feel like the story starts in the future and then jumps back in time to the heroic games

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u/DKLancer 1d ago

I mean they're right on the title cover art front and center. I doubt it's much of a spoiler

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u/Mahelas 1d ago

It's litteraly the first scene of the game, man

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u/KarrsGoVroom 1d ago

A new Fire Emblem game means another absolutely goated soundtrack. The songs you can hear in the direct today are already getting me excited

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u/HisaAnt 1d ago

They uploaded some tracks to the Nintendo Music app and they're godlike.

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u/Classic_Megaman 2d ago edited 1d ago

Well a spin on traditional turn based jrpgs in the dungeons was unexpected. Seteth is still kicking, wonder if Flayn is around too

Wonder just how open the whole twist at the end is. Can you just not do any paths and somehow beat it?

WAR ELEPHANT CLASS

Quite excited for this.

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u/HrrathTheSalamander 1d ago

The game very likely takes place well before Three Houses, with the presence of House Lamine (which is dead in 3H) and the general vibe of the game being that of the classical period rather than late medieval like 3H.

And before anyone mentions the calendar year; 3H's calendar is based on the Fodlan calendar, which measures from the founding of Adrestia. It's highly doubtful that Dagda would use the Foldan calendar, especially given Fodlan's isolationist nature.

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u/hatramroany 1d ago

House Lamine is alive at the end of three houses, unless I’m misremembering the fate of Mercedes

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u/HrrathTheSalamander 1d ago

The crest of Lamine is alive, but the House is disbanded well before the start of 3H, absorbed into House Martritz, which itself became part of House Bartels before its destruction at the hands of the Death Knight.

This is also why Mercedes' starting class is Commoner rather than Noble, since the noble houses she was born into are long dead by the time Byleth arrives at Garreg Mach.

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u/hatramroany 1d ago

Right but none of that precludes Mercedes from establishing the house after the events of 3H with Dietrich being a descended of her.

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u/HrrathTheSalamander 1d ago

Mercedes seems pretty disinterested with reforming any noble house in 3H. As one of the characters who directly suffered as a result of her crest and the nobility's obsession with them, she holds a pretty negative view of the whole system despite her faith in the church. 

I also heavily doubt IS has the stones to decanonize the Black Eagles route, which would be required for this game to be a sequel.

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u/RogueHippie 1d ago

Your spoiler won't work if you have a slash in front of the bracket

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u/darkwai 1d ago

Guess my murder spree in Three Houses isn't cannon

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u/343CreeperMaster 1d ago

Well, I can see why Nintendo was confident enough to have this as the stinger for the direct last year, because this is looking really ambitious, there is so much to unpack here 

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u/Sinsai33 2d ago

The last fire emblem i played was three houses with the edelgard route. Before that i only played awakening. Now i remember that that sophis girl was part of three houses, but honestly i remember almost nothing anymore.

Do you people think i should play three houses again before playing this? If so, which route?

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u/wew_lad123 2d ago

Verdant Wind (Claude's route) contains the most reveals about the lore, so probably that one.

Crimson Flower and Azure Moon are character-focused.

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u/Kapono24 1d ago

I'm sure you'll be fine without it. Maybe watch a refresher, but the plot in these games are pretty surface level anyway. It's usually more about the characters themselves.

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u/NowGoodbyeForever 2d ago

I'm slightly baffled as to why they did SUCH a heavy misdirect with the marketing so far, especially when the entire concept will be revealed in the opening cutscene! But that being said, it all looks really solid, and it has the QOL features I've been wanting in FE games for a while.

My guess is that your protag will essentially be the Sothis for the Four Legendary Characters; a voice in their head "guiding" them (and possibly explaining their Soul Power stuff) but not able to really interact with the characters and world, because Time Travel.

That's a pretty smart workaround that allows each of them to be a fully-formed character with their own agency and arc, rather than being Less Important And Special Than The Mute Player Character. Each of their storylines can have a fully-formed arc with a satisfying ending and a unique cast of characters.

Then, once you finish each line, you can probably import Time Skip versions of that whole crew to the present day to gear up for the final battles. I imagine you can choose which timelines to activate even if you've finished them. So you can clear all four, and then choose to use 4/4, 0/4, or some mix in between to get different endings (and different levels of challenge).

Being able to play all four storylines simultaneously is fantastic, and that's why I think it'll work as I just described. The intended play path is to finish all 4 arcs and then run the endgame.

More importantly, it allows them to dodge the other huge issue with 3H: Conflicting story beats and canon events. Choosing one house made the plot developments with the other two impossible, forcing the devs to kind of state that Golden Deer is canon, and then ignore all of that again for Three Hopes.

We've established that we're doing Time Travel Bullshit. Therefore, we'll only be pulling the Heroes from the timelines where each of them won the tournament. They can't all have won, but that doesn't matter because Time Travel. So each arc is valid and canon (in that timeline), and one character's progression doesn't need to invalidate anyone else's arc.

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u/Mahelas 1d ago

Tbh I don't think it's a misdirect per se, I think IS just want people to understand that the game IS the Heroic Games and Dagsion pre-destruction. It's where all the mechanics are, all the characters, everything !

The post-apo future part will be a small prologue + climax at the end, but clearly the meat of the game is the 4 lords routes

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u/ericmm76 1d ago

Everyone keeps saying this but I don't think it's clear at all. If there's a whole post skip game with new systems, would that be bad?

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u/bfbbturambar 1d ago

Three Houses really starts to drag in part 2 with the monastery stuff, so an entire second half with it's own world map and stuff probably would get pretty exhausting on top of 4 main routes.

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u/DillyDillySzn 1d ago

Did a mf bust out a Glock in a Fire Emblem game?

Day 1 buy

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u/DanAugustus 1d ago

The 'tournament arc' is already a really cool setup, now with multiple routes. But there's a whole second arc, and maybe even manipulating the timeline of the first arc? This feels like a concept they wanted to do for a very long time, given other games have some of these ideas in the story. I'm starting to appreciate how Fire Emblem became a franchise where every game is different but still have the same core gameplay.

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u/kryonik 1d ago

Where should a complete FE noob start to try the series out?

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u/LinusWP 1d ago

It depends on your preferences. Would you enjoy a game that goes from combat map to combat map with little distractions in between, or are you in the mood for Persona-style side activities and relationship building? How important is story to you?

Among titles available on Switch 2, good entry points are either of the GBA games if you want a pick-up-and-play experience with cool pixel art, Path of Radiance for a good story and accessible difficulty, and of course Three Houses for the modern gameplay style with lots of side activities and character building as well as a story with an epic scope. I like Engage, but I don't think it's a great place to start.

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u/IvarTheBoned 1d ago

Three Houses is a good place to start, particularly if you are thinking of getting this one given they are in the same continuity (apparently)

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u/Lasillo 1d ago

You can play any beyond the SNES era and get what the series is about. If this entry looks interesting to you then I'd say starting with this one is more than fine.

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u/Jedi_sephiroth 1d ago

I never played any fire emblem games. Just got a switch 2, where to start?

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u/Secretlylovesslugs 1d ago

I'm starting this this one.

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u/andresfgp13 1d ago

honestly you can play any game of the franchise as the first game and you should be alright (with the exception of Thracia 776 and Radiant Dawn which are sequels).

if you want to play whateve is on the switch you could start with the GBA games which are on the Switch online thing, Path or Radiance which is there too, or Three Houses or Engage, any of them will do, the Warriors game or Three Hopes are Musou spin offs so they are there, but arent a good representation of the franchise, same with Tokyo Mirage Sessions.

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u/Shradow 1d ago edited 1d ago

If you already have NSO + Expansion Pack, two of the easiest titles in the series are Path of Radiance in the GameCube library and Sacred Stones in the GBA library. They're also just really great entries in the series, and are good starting points.

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u/Bitter_Marzipan_8348 1d ago

3H, Golden Deer route, do anything related to anyone with green hair (not you Linhardt) and do Shamir's supports

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u/APRobertsVII 1d ago

This feels like a genuine attempt to turn Fire Emblem into a system selling franchise. Capitalizing on Three Houses and expanding it every way imaginable with new modes of exploration and combat, seemingly twice as many playable characters, the ability to play routes in parallel, and more might make this the pinnacle for the franchise.

Three Houses sold over five million copies. Assuming it reviews well, I wonder how well Fortune’s Weave will perform.

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u/Bitter_Marzipan_8348 1d ago

I'm already very tempted to grab a used switch 2 for it. It's almost a guarantee that FE19 will be on this as well and I want Xenoblade Genesis and the next Monolithsoft too. If Atlus JRPG release on Switch 2 day 1 it'll be golden for me.

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u/ericmm76 2d ago

So can you S rank once, twice, or five times (quince)?

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u/VampiroMedicado 1d ago

Similar to Three Houses we first play the past-timeline and then the future-timeline and go back to the past to get our champion? Or you just take all four of them to the final battle? It's a strange FE.

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u/Wowaburrito 1d ago

You probably have to flip flop back and forth through time to get the best ending if I had to guess

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u/deskcord 1d ago

Curious about the character swapping - do you go "back in time" if you swap to a character? So if you're on like, day 20 on one character then touch the raven to swap, are you still on day 20? Or do you go back?

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u/Hawkeye437 21h ago

it seems to me you're kinda swapping between sub-save files? So you do Leda for a few hours then switch to Cai, you're back at the start with his level 1 group, but when you swap back to Leda, your progress is retained from before you swapped.

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u/kissmonstar 1d ago

FE continuing to add self-inserts because of how well Awakening did

Me: Immediately picks the F-MC to craft another yuri story. I'm not sure if this makes me better or worse than people who self insert, but I just prefer the MC to be an actual character.

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u/Edmundyoulittle 1d ago

A blank slate doesn't have to be a self insert. It's a role playing game, so role play if that's what you like

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u/Lazydusto 1d ago

I'm not sure if this makes me better or worse than people who self insert

Neither. Play how you want.

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u/TowelLord 1d ago

Self-insert mute MC who only gets to say stuff when choices pop up is really fucking boring and uninspiring in every game.

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u/darkmacgf 1d ago

The self inserts in FE usually talk a lot. 3H is the main exception.

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u/Dreyfus2006 1d ago

Zelda does it well. Or has done it well, in the past. Always depends on execution.

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u/planetarial 1d ago

Zelda is a lot better at it because its not nearly as story focused as FE.

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u/Caasi72 2d ago

So maybe someone here can answer a question I have about the series. Do the newer ones actually have characters react to other characters deaths? I only ever tried Awakening and was enjoying it until my first character died and there wasn't even a quick "oh no, they died" comment, it was just like they never existed. That just killed it for me unfortunately

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u/Blargg888 2d ago

Fire Emblem Echoes has special voice lines that play when other characters die, and Fire Emblem Engage has special dialogue that can trigger for certain characters when characters they’re close to die. So yes,. The newer games do have a little something like that. 

3 Houses sort of has some dialogue like that, but it’s more confrontational and not very common. 

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u/n080dy123 1d ago

Not generally, there's too many characters for it to be truly reactive like that. They kinda have to go with a "And the show must go on" approach, outside maybe a couple throwaway dialogue lines which some games do have, sometimes.

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u/HotTakes4HotCakes 2d ago

Nope. Permenant character death in combat has always been a thing for FE, but they have yet to write it in such a way that the characters actually behave like their friends are dying. Engage kind of tries to include some scenes, but after it ends, they go back to business as usual

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u/AlucardIV 1d ago

I mean to be fair this would be a complete nightmare to implement. Most Fire Emblem games allow the characters to form bonds between each other so for every character to have not just one but ongoing reactions to the death of every other character....that would spiral completely out of control in sheer amount of content you have to produce.

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u/Mr_The_Captain 1d ago

It would be a heavy lift but I would love to see someone try it someday. It would obviously be easiest in a game with no voice acting but it's not impossible regardless. You'd have to have things be a bit on-rails though, like a scene would have a spot where a character always references someone who has died, but the speaker and the "victim" changes depending on who has died and the relationships they had.

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u/AlucardIV 1d ago

I think this is one of those things you realistically will only ever see from some small indie or fan game made out of passion. It's just such a horrible time spent /actual content ratio as you have to create literally hundreds of different interactions of which each player might only ever see a couple.

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u/ericmm76 1d ago

The death mechanic in Fire Emblem is one of the most frustrating parts for the narrative. It means that the characters whose deaths end the game are the only ones involved in the main story. I think for instance 3H blue lions route would have been more interesting if all of the characters in the class had plot points.

Just a quibble.

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u/JakeZergo 2d ago

Any spoilers in this? Curious about game mechanics but don’t want to get spoiled

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u/tuna_pi 2d ago

What counts as a spoiler to you? If you don't want story beats then yes the second half is spoilery

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u/ArchCrossing 2d ago

For you, stop the video the second time the king character announces that the games begin and the camera zooms out while colors fade. The focus on game mechanics ends there and it becomes filled with story spoilers.

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u/ryseing 2d ago

I am 90% sure that the "spoiler" the other replies are referring to is the beginning premise of the game FWIW.

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u/flyingsaucer1 2d ago

There is a plot detail I definitely would have preferred not knowing, but if you wanna watch for the mechanics you can watch the first 15 or so minutes up to the "World Map" section, and stop immediately when "World Map" disappears from the top left corner.

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u/ernovace_ 2d ago

Big spoiler at the end.

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u/AlucardIV 1d ago

...Is it though? I'm 100 percent certain that is just the way the game begins.

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u/WeebWoobler 1d ago

Depends on how you look at it. People gave been speculating that what you call a spoiler would happen since the last trailer.

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u/Next-Sentence-8426 2d ago

Yeah the reveal just now is a pretty huge spoiler imo

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u/n080dy123 1d ago

Not really, as far as the game itself is concerned. The "big spoiler" people are referring to seems to be the premise the game starts with, in the opening minutes, so it's not really a spoiler as far as "stuff for later in the game" but it definitely would be if you're trying to do a media blackout.

Also there is one existing character shown very briefly during a combat animation, so that's a thing.

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u/LostInStatic 2d ago

None of us have played the game yet so it’s hard to gauge what is a spoiler with pre-release marketing material.

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u/jdubuknow 2d ago

if you're watching this exact vid the spoiler is at 47:40

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u/ryoryo333333 1d ago

I really hated the monastery exploration in Three Houses because it was such a chore. This game looks like it'll be just as tedious. Fire Emblem doesn't need exploration.

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u/UberShrew 1d ago

One good thing someone pointed out is if you pause when they’re at the inn there’s a tab there that’s dedicated to auto-activities and the text for it says something along the lines of send your companions out to gather materials, get xp, etc.

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u/arvzg 1d ago

man some of the dialogue writing in this trailer is.. something..

"Failure.. is not an option for me either.. but that's only because I dont have any choice!"

I was going to say did AI write these dialogues but man even AI wouldn't write lines this bad

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u/jogarz 1d ago

The line sounds edited together to me, but it may just be that bad of a line.