I know I said originally that I would be posting about sports, video games, and movies and I intend to stay true to that. At this point, I have almost exclusively posted about sports so here’s a new video game post. It has been over a month since I posted anything video game related so I just want to discuss what I’ve played recently. I have really only played one game and that is Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave on the Nintendo Switch 2. I’m not going to get too in depth since the game is relatively new and if I did get too in depth, this post would go on forever.
Fire Emblem Fortune’s Weave is the latest entry in the series and also the longest. There is so much to do in this game and there will be even more when more downloadable content comes out next year. There are over sixty playable units and four paths to play through. Eventually they come together in the final part for the climax of the story. I haven’t played most of the entries in the series but I have played a lot of the recent ones, Awakening, Fates: Conquest, Three Houses, and Engage, along with both Warriors games.
For those that don’t know, Fire Emblem is a turn-based tactics RPG. You control units on a map to take down enemy units. It is quite simple in concept but in reality it is complex and very strategic. There are dozens of classes each character can be and so many options for weapons, whether you want bows, axes, spears, swords, gauntlets, magic, etc. You can customize each character to your liking and it changes how their stats grows and skills improve.
In this game, you create a character and take on the prologue before getting to choose which path you want to take on first in part 1. You ally with the goddess of fate to go back in time and save heroes from the past to bring to the present and help you in your fight. Part 1 consists of 4 paths, you can choose Cai’s path, Leda’s, Theodora’s, or Dietrich’s. They all have different goals and motivations but in the end, they all take part in the Heroic Games which is basically a gladiatorial competition. If you win the games, the divine sovereign of the empire will grant you any wish. Cai is on a quest to save his father who is scheduled to be executed. Leda wants revenge against a character named Bertrand, who is competing in the games as well. Theodora wants her religion to be respected instead of looked down upon. And Dietrich just wants to fight strong opponents. You can do them in any order and once you clear their path, you can take on part 2 with them which is the war arc. The divine emperor wakes from a long slumber and wants to eradicate Theodora’s people since he doesn’t think they should have a right to exist. You assist Theodora in fighting back against the divine emperor in this part. In part 3, all paths come together to take on the Demon God, Balor. It turns out all the actions in parts 1 and 2 were orchestrated by Balor’s children, so they could sacrifice enough lives to resurrect their father. By doing this, they could have his underworld take over the actual world. Obviously you stop him but this is where the story gets a bit messy to me. I’ll explain more on this when I get to part 3 in this post but for now I want to focus on each path you can choose.
Part 1
Cai’s path is the simplest. Most of the world map is blocked off and he stays close to the capital city. It makes sense that his path is the most limited since he is just a teenager in this part. I chose to do this path first and I think it was the right decision. Based on how it plays out, it seems this was intended to be the introductory path. Cai heads to Dagsion, the capital city, with his father and two friends from home. His father is scheduled to be executed in the city and Cai wants to stop it. He joins the heroic games to try and accomplish this goal.
I did Leda’s path next and her path is more focused on her revenge against Bertrand. There is more lore in this path too that helps lead to the overarching plot that you wouldn’t get from Cai’s path alone. If you only play one path, you would probably be confused later on since you’re only getting a quarter of the picture. But if you play all four paths, you get a lot more information and can understand it better. You still miss out on a lot since it seems the game was originally planned to have 8 paths and hopefully all the puzzle pieces will align when the other four characters have their stories released in the DLC. Leda’s path also has more at the end that relates to how Balor and his power work. Cai has some story with Balor in the middle but Leda’s is more directly tied into a battle.
Theodora’s path was my third choice. She is the queen of the southern kingdom of Saramis on the continent. Her kingdom worships Yu Phas, who is the goddess of death. Yu Phas sacrificed herself in the past to save the people of Saramis from the divine emperor Dagda the Great, so that is why they worship her. Dagda the great becomes a central antagonist for part 2 and more on Yu Phas is clearly absent that is supposed to be included in another path. Theodora’s path ends with a fight back in her homeland rather than at the heroic games. She is a devoted queen to her people and that is shown based on the side content available in her path. Through her path you also learn of the dislike the people of Dagsion have for the kingdom of Saramis, just because their people are different.
Dietrich’s path was last for me but it ended up probably being my favorite. Since I did it last, there were fewer side quests I needed to do so I could focus entirely on the main plot. Dietrich is from Fodlan, which is the continent a previous game, Fire Emblem: Three Houses, takes place in. He gets in a shipwreck in his first chapter when the ship he is on is attacked by Cetus, the sea tyrant. He joins the heroic games in hopes of getting a ship that won’t break so he can take on Cetus. Dietrich’s story deals with a lot more of the story of Balor’s children and their overall plans as well which is another reason I enjoyed it most. Dietrich was my favorite unit to use in battle due to his unique abilities and overwhelming strength; it felt like he could take on any map on his own. Dietrich got his wish early before winning the heroic games; he was given a ship by the divine sovereign since Cetus was making the seas dangerous for the people. So with multiple chapters to go, Dietrich accomplishes his goal. Since he wants to challenge strong opponents, once he wins the games, he challenges Mars, Dagsion’s god of war. This concludes his story. He only wants to face strong opponents but he learns the importance of having companions along the way.
Dietrich pictured above, photo from Fire Emblem Wiki
Part 1 consists of daily life in the capital of Dagsion for each character. There are plenty of side quests to do, plenty of optional battles to do, a huge world map to explore and more. This part is the longest of the game and takes up more than half of the play time in the game. I see why it is only four paths instead of eight like it seemed was intended, but I wish they could have included the stories of the other four so you get the full picture. I’m going to have to wait until the DLC next year to get the full story but I really enjoyed part one as is. It just felt like there were a lot of plot threads left unfinished without the other parts. After finishing part 1, I was very curious of how they would combine each path.
Part 2
Part 2 was a bit of a let down for me. It felt more like Theodora part 1.5 rather than a part 2 for everyone. Due to this, you do have the option to only play it once and then have it clear for every other path. However I did it on every path since it allowed me to grow my units as I chose rather than it auto-leveling for me. Since I did it multiple times, it was very repetitive and there were very little differences.
As I said earlier, this is Theodora’s fight against the divine emperor Dagda the Great. If you play Cai, Leda, or Dietrich’s part 2, they ally with Theodora in this fight. Even with them joining, there aren’t major differences which was disappointing to me. It didn’t feel like I was playing their part 2 at all, it felt like they were just there for a Theodora part 2. It is a similar problem to the first part of Fire Emblem: Three Houses. In the second part of Three Houses, the stories vary and diverge greatly after starting super similar in part 1. Fortune’s Weave is the inverse, you start of very diverse and then come together. This is why there is only one part 3 to do but four of the other ones.
I wish there were more differences in this part instead of playing Theodora’s war against Dagda the Great over and over. The maps were better and had more difficulty but the overall story was worse to me. There wasn’t any downtime like part 1 where you could explore, instead you went right into the next fight. This is more similar to older Fire Emblem games and it works, but it sticks out in this game since it varies so much from the rest of the game. Especially since you don’t have your items from part 1, you don’t get all of those back until part 3.
Part 2 was my least favorite part of the three since I was really looking forward to seeing how things would come together but instead they just repeated the same story multiple times. At the end of part 2, Balor is resurrected and your player character tells the other units to meet up in a few years. A time skip occurs and part 3 starts when each character is older and you’re able to regroup and regather your strength to defeat the resurrected demon god.
Part 3
This is where all your allies finally come together to take on Balor. You take on different bosses that are defending Underworld gates. When you defeat these and destroy the gates, you can weaken Balor before you take him on to end the story. It was great to finally have all your units back together. It was a bit much to have to set the equipment for sixty units and that took a while but I did want to make sure everyone was set and I could use each unit that I wanted. I made sure to try and use nearly every unit so I could build the group I wanted in the end.
The story comes together in this part and gets a little messy to me but it finally ties back into the prologue from dozens of hours prior. It took a while to get to it and bringing all four paths together is a bit clunky, but finally having all your units together is a great payoff. Dietrich, as always, was my best unit but in addition to him, you get your character that you created in the beginning and they are also incredibly strong.
Overall, part 3 was a good payoff that I’m not going to talk about too in depth since it is the climax. Part 2 had great and more difficult maps but the story was repetitive. And part 1 was the best overall to me. Part 1 had the best story and best character growth in my eyes and it was able to keep each story contained and make you want to learn more. I do wish all eight stories were told so I could learn the full picture since there are some major characters that die off screen, but I am happy with the four they chose. There are plenty of story details I did not mention and there is a lot more depth to the game than I described. I didn’t even mention the battle system but I think this game has one of the best in the series. I greatly enjoyed the gameplay loop and never got bored.
Time constraints in development was probably the main reason that things were cut and they didn’t want to delay the game. I just hope it wasn’t purposely cut content that they decided to sell as DLC instead to make even more money. It was probably a mix of both and I am excited for the DLC to come out next year. This game was one of the longest games I have ever played to reach the end credits but it was still so much fun. It is probably by favorite game in the series and it is my favorite Switch 2 game so far. I encourage you to try the game if you’re interested. Fire Emblem is a great series but so many people look at it negatively purely due to having a lot of characters playable in Super Smash Bros. If it isn’t your cup of tea, I get it, but still let the fans be happy about things. People don’t always need to be overly negative. I have my complaints about things but it is still important to find the joy in things. Next game up for me is going to be The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, remade on the Nintendo Switch 2. Ocarina of Time is one of my top 10 favorite games ever so I know for a fact I should love the remake. That comes out next week and I look forward to it. As always, thank you for reading. Feel free to comment anything and let me know your thoughts on the game if you have played it, thank you!
Images via Nintendo, Polygon, and Fire Emblem Wiki