For several hours, players diving into Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave may find themselves meandering across the world map like a woman crazed, driven by a feverish pursuit of gifts. No matter what the in-game calendar says, every day feels like a rush to clean out vendors’ stock for the several dozen characters they are determined to make their new besties. Back in Dagsion, meticulously ticking through the full laundry list of recruitable characters and dutifully handing them their pastries or fish sauce can quickly turn into a blur where one swarthy pirate or pegasus girl blends seamlessly into the next. Doing this for several in-game months, however, often leads to the sudden realization that players are not actually enjoying the game to its fullest.
Going into Fortune’s Weave, it is widely known that the title features more characters than can actually be recruited on a single route. Certain individuals are exclusive to just one or two paths, which is precisely why the game offers the flexibility to play as all four distinct protagonists. For some players, though, the brain takes this mechanic and twists it into a daunting completionist challenge akin to gathering Suikoden’s infamous 108 Stars of Destiny or maxing out every single social link across the Persona series.
In reality, Fortune’s Weave is far more generous than those classic titles. If a player misses a specific character while progressing down Leda’s route, that individual can typically be picked up later on Cai, Deitrich, or Theodora’s route. Alternatively, for those looking for less of a massive time commitment, it is entirely possible to simply replay a previous chapter of Leda’s route and use that focused window to recruit the companion who previously got away. Despite knowing there is no sound tactical reason to recruit every single available unit on a first playthrough, many players still find themselves wasting countless hours doing precisely that.
During Act One of Fortune’s Weave, each of the game’s four main protagonists features a substantial twelve-chapter story arc. As players progress roughly halfway through these initial chapters, their renown rank—which serves as one of several core variables governing the ability to recruit new teammates—begins climbing significantly. Suddenly, the prospect of buying the affection of aloof prospects with swanky dinners at local inns and boatloads of imported fish sauce feels like an entirely attainable goal. Unfortunately, this often leads players to spend the middle chapters of routes like Leda’s scraping by while severely underleveled, because their priorities have shifted away from improving their active roster and toward simply expanding it.
While Fortune’s Weave gives players near-total freedom regarding who they choose to recruit, the design simultaneously encourages a strict policy of playing favorites. Following Leda’s path reveals that most main story battles during the Heroic Games impose a strict deployment limit ranging between five and seven party members. This design choice means a player can easily accumulate a dozen characters on their roster whom they spent hours wooing, only to never actually deploy them in combat. As it turns out, tactical scenarios requiring a deployment of six mages simultaneously are exceptionally rare. Instead, the characters most frequently utilized are those acquired automatically by default through the main narrative, supplemented by a rotating ensemble of three or four specific recruits in whom the player actually invested meaningful training and combat time.
Ultimately, trying to make every single character a friend in Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave proves to be an exhausting exercise that is largely doomed to failure, much like navigating complex social dynamics in real life. A more rewarding approach involves choosing a select few compelling individuals who catch the player’s eye early on, accepting the reality that while a couple will turn out to be incredible assets, many others might simply end up being duds. After all, in a sprawling tactical RPG of this scale, it is truly never too late to circle back and pursue the sad goth girl with the cool hat.
Leave a Reply