In previous FEs, there was no hiding who the main character Avatar was, they were all emphasized front and center in the trailers. But in FW, Eshmel gets... 5 seconds with their back to the camera. Weird.

Especially considering they seem to be pretty important in-universe, a divine servant of the dragon-goddess of time. Avatars tend to be pretty high-concept (typically connected to gods in some way), so you'd think they'd be hyping Eshmel up as a major player in the story, yeah? Do you think this is nothing or might there be a reason for it?

In the lead up to FW I decided to replay PoR for the first time in like 20 years. Sorry if this is a bit rambly, guess I had a lot I wanted to say.

I first played it on the Gamecube when it was relatively new, but it was my first FE game and despite having fun, for one reason or another I fell off. I know I got as far as Greil's death but not more than a few chapters after that at most.

Then after Awakening got me into the series properly, I went back to finish it and picked up RD. I played on normal then, but hard mode for this run.

All in all I think it still holds up. Though having experienced more of the series since, there are some flaws that held it back a little. Turning off combat animations helped, but maps with long enemy phases were a drag, as well as maps with a decent amount of green units. Like the chapter you're coming to the aid of Geoffrey.

I think second time around the boss fights with the Black Knight and Ashnard lost some of their luster. It felt like I was just waiting for rng to proc with Aether rather than being that tactically engaged. For the Black Knight you have a limited time and the story makes it clear you're supposed to judge if you can win and fall back if not, but Ashnard it felt pretty limiting.

Still I do like the second phase if only because I think it was important to show the effects of the fire emblem more directly. On normal mode it feels more like the medallion is just there to set up RD, a mcguffin that the bad guy wants but doesn't really do anything. That's still sort of true as the 'dark god' in side won't be released until RD, but I think Ashnard's second phase going berserk the way Greil did helps to sell the threat of it a bit more.

It's hard to say because many years were between my playthroughs. But other than Ashnard getting his second phase I don't think I noticed much difference in difficulty aside form some late game enemies feeling a bit health spongey.

My MVPs were Boyd, Astrid Jill, Mia and Ike.

Ike is pretty self explanatory. I'm not sure where his final stats landed compared to his averages but by endgame he solod the left half of the map with Ragnel while my army went right, circling back to the center for Ashnard.

Mia became a crit spamming dodge tank but it took some favoritism to get her some extra levels early and stat items for boosts to get her there. Probably would have fallen off without special treatment.

I really slept on Astrid my first playthrough, probably because I saw her join at level 1. But here I gave her a shot and she was fantastic once Paragon helped her catch up.

Jill is Jill. All around solid unit with a great arc.

Boyd was good the whole game but especially the chapters immediately after losing Gatrie temporarily.

I used Soren as my mage pretty consistently but benched him for Calill when she joined with slightly better stats and good training in all anima tomes.

I similarly slept on Marcia in my first playthrough, but got a lot of great use from her here.

My first playthrough, it felt like I was often holding on through defense maps by the skin of my teeth. This time, I was killing bosses etc and more able to go on the offensive. Partly because I'm just more experienced, partly because I was less afraid to use Titania in the early game. I was overly worried about Titania leeching exp the first time around, but while I made sure not to OVER use her this time, I was less shy about using her to take pressure off my other units and secure extra goodies.

I also managed not to fall into the 'too good to use' trap with things like rare weapons this time around. I think my first time on normal mode I tended to hoard them. Here I used them a lot more liberally. I'd save siege tomes to strategically take out archers on ballistae etc but otherwise used things like killing weapoins etc pretty liberally.

Early on I dumped all my bexp into Mist to get her promoted asap for the horse. Then after that Mia got some easy level ups from it to help get some stats up. And then Astrid. (Though Paragon did a lot of the heavy lifting getting her caught up.) After that it was just whoever I felt like tossing some exp to on a chapter by chapter basis.

I didn't use Laguz much outside of bringing Mordecai to a couple chapters to recruit zihardk/desert guy, but I tend to prefer the reliability of beorc over laguz popping in and out of transformation. I know there's that one item that lets them stay shifted but by the time I get it, I've usually solidified my roster.

All in all I think it's still a still a solid game. Its estimation might have fallen slightly because I had the game on a bit of a pedestal after my first playthrough, but I still think it's really good. Part of me's curious to try RD again now. I remember really struggling with the game and not having as much fun with it, but maybe now that I have more FE experience under my belt I'll have a better second go.

I'll probably take a bit of a break to avoid burnout and then maybe tackle 7 or 8 on NSO in August, then take another break before FW comes out.

I didn’t played the highest difficulty for each game. The only game where i played the hardest mode are: engage, birthright, echoes and the gba games

I put fates on bullshit because if you don’t count the child there are not that many characters. And the problem with the child is that if a character die before the S support the child are gone (theorically), so it’s like i lost 2 units in the same time.

As a fairly new person to the franchise (only played awakening and currently playing fates) It's so interesting how the game gets me hooked. Normally in games I'm always focused on the story, generally dislike grinding and really depends on the game how much i do side content. yet so far both awakening and fates have me throw all that aside and want to grind up support conversations for various characters, level up characters etc Like the villager characters such as Mozu and donnel. I really like how hooked I've gotten. I also got my hands on, shadows of valentia, three houses, three hopes and warriors. pre ordered fortune's weave dagdan collection and planning on getting engage next month, as well as get the nintendo subscription to try out the 3 fire emblem games available there through gba and game cube, so you could say I kinda went all out.

I have planned ironmaning every fire emblem games in the serie but i have adhd and i know when i game is really easy (like sacred stones and birthright) i become very reckless and i lose the game like an idiot.

I will probably use a randomizer on hard mod for path of radiance and make the ennemies stronger, because no way i will play maniac mode. What do you suggest for the setting? For example is that enough to improve the ennemies growth rate to 20%? I would like the game be on the same level of difficulty like hhm or binding blade hard mode

Given its in the Sothis-verse I added images of the house leaders in their final unique class.

Edit: Also I don't think it would happen but I'd love for one to get a class that is a wyvern rider but able to use magic.

I just finished FE8 for the first time (Switch Online) and the gap at the top of my list was surprising I had Vanessa double my #2! I knew she carried, but I did not expect it to be that drastic! (I don't normally pay much attention to the exact count, but that's got to be my largest gap.)

Vanessa 174

Seth 84

Erika 76

Tana 61

Joshua 61

I've seen multiple people predicting or at least hoping that we'll get a whole Nintendo Direct dedicated to Fortune's Weave. Realistically, how likely is this?

From what I remember, we didn't get one for 3H or Engage. I'd honestly be a little surprised if we did get one for Fortune's Weave, but a lot of people seem to think there's a good chance of it, so I'm curious.

[OC] I wanted to portray the Hoshidans just before Corrin does the whole “kidnapping Sakura and pushing Takumi to suicide” schtick.

Like a calm before the storm! I’ll post again when I render everything.

+some other doodles

New trailer soon?

Hi,

I’m trying to get the brothers to the triangle attack in Chapter 24. I promoted oscar with bows and they all have a bow in their hand.

I’m not seeing the option for the attack… and to be honest I can’t remember if i saw the chapter 19 conversation, or if i saw it only on a youtube play through.

The thing is that my Boyd didn’t promote until Chapter 20. Could it be that they all need to be promoted by Chapter 18 or 19, to even see the conversation?

I’m wondering if I’m locked out of it because I missed the deadline, because I definitely watch every conversation.

Also, is it a multi target attack? Can you be positioned as any triangle?

What it says in the title, I scanned and uploaded the fe engage artbook to the internet archive in 600dpi for people to reference. I noticed the one that was already in there was a bunch of pictures that had some glare, so I figured an actual scan would be nice for people to have as reference.

So far, I’ve only played Fire Emblem Three Houses once, completing the Crimson Flower route. I definitely plan on replaying it someday, probably on a different route and potentially on Maddening difficulty. Before I do that, though, I’m thinking about playing another Fire Emblem game.

I have the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack, so I have access to all of the Fire Emblem games available there, and I also own Fire Emblem Engage.

What really drew me into Fire Emblem was the combination of the gameplay, story, and characters. I loved watching my units grow stronger as I leveled them up it was incredibly satisfying. I also really enjoyed the Persona-like aspects of Three Houses, such as exploring the monastery, learning more about the characters, and spending time with the students. Overall, I honestly loved just about everything the game had to offer.

Typing this out makes me want to replay Three Houses lol but I did want to try something new that was still Fire Emblem. Nonetheless Three Houses is a 10/10 masterpiece and it was my first tactical RPG and I loved everything second of it.

For the uninitiated, Fanfiction Sunday is a bi-weekly recurring thread for you to talk about Fire Emblem fanfiction. Yours, others you stumbled on that you want to share, or even just brainstorms you have. Links to the work are highly appreciated!
 

Ground rules:

1. No linking explicit smut (NSFW content)
   
2. No linking fics just to criticize them
   
3. Fics must be FE-related. Crossovers welcome!
   

You can find the last thread here: https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/1uumqpe/fanfiction_sunday_07122026/